Please vote yes on the library’s millage renewal in the upcoming election. The Alpena County Library is a cornerstone of our community.

It is literally built on an historic corner of our community’s downtown and serves as a regional hub. This is the point from where the first permanent settlers (Daniel Carter family) of Alpena established themselves with legacies that are with us to this day. The county’s library is a regional center of learning made possible by a whole host of private and public initiatives over decades of support. They are asking us as a community to continue our public tax support so they can continue and expand on what they do so well.

I like to think of the library as an extension of our community’s overall campus infrastructure, providing all sorts of educational and cultural opportunities for our region’s citizens and their economic and community development. As one major portal for such engagements, I often have students use the archives (Special Collections) at the library for the college courses that I teach in history and political science. If you have not experienced the collections at the library in person or online, please make a point of visiting this wonderful repository of local history. It is amazing how it bridges local to national and world history based on the experiences of our fellow local citizens. Civil War, WWI, WWII and all sorts of other records from locals, including family genealogies and institutional records, are housed here in safe-keeping, along with the regular collections and technological resources that make this library such a precious local asset of our community; one deserving of continued support with this millage renewal.

Your support will help secure the library’s legacy for another generation of 21st century capacities.

TIM KUEHNLEIN,

Alpena