Page 26 THE VILLADOM TIMES I • June 15, 2011 they’re really thinking,” some folks say. Actually, they all say this about one another when talking among their own people. John Wayne won the Academy Award for a similar remark about Chen Yi, his Chinese landlord and titular “father,” in “True Grit.” Once everyone gets to be friends, the things Asian women say about Asian men also have a sinister similarity… When people are participating in an ESL class, they practice civility, and everybody dotes on everybody else’s kids and tells their own kids, “You should be more like soand-so.” Libraries are a force for world peace and world understanding. A surprising number of Asians never welcome members of other Asian groups over their thresholds – but at the library, people from all ethnic groups are buddies. Then there are those emergencies that fate and technology inflict on all of us. For example: What to do when the computer at home crashes? Sending letters through the mail is about on the level with smoke signals and flashing mirrors. The phone always rings when you’re in the tub or gardening. When you’re expecting an e-mail and somebody has sent you a virus instead, you’ve got the library as a back-up – if it’s open. Getting a message you’re expecting is well worth the $1 an hour fee that the Ridgewood Library now charges patrons from outside Ridgewood. Tripping over people who use computers to play games is nowhere near as bad as wondering when it’s coming and what it says. The need for a lot of this stuff slumps off over the summer, but it never disappears. Even in tutoring, which now provides the Ridgewood Library with revenue of $50 a month for a special table – first come, first served -- some people keep at it over the summer. Those facing the dreaded SATs in September and October are well advised to do so. Three months of volleyball and swimming could be a very high price to pay for missing the college you’ve got your heart set on because your SAT score is 100 points below the cutoff, and the kind of books people take to the beach probably won’t cut the slack. In the best of all worlds, the Ridgewood Library and a couple of the other bigger libraries in Northwest Bergen County would stay open on Sundays all summer, but reality intervenes. The money just is not there. The Ridgewood Village Council restored $35,000 of the money originally cut from the library budget, but that still left about $42,000 that the library would need to stay open and functional most summer Sundays. Nor is it equitable to expect people who live in Ridgewood to foot the whole bill themselves so that outsiders can enjoy their library at no cost unless they tutor or need a computer. Here are a couple of ideas. One local town doesn’t have a public library. The residents are allowed to use the Ridgewood Library as visitors but they have to go through all sorts of rigamarole before they can use the library’s checkout facilities, special orders, and so forth. I remember this because two of my nicest tutorial kids were from that town, and when I recommended books to improve their vocabulary, I had to take them out on my own card. The moral stance, I suppose, is that if you’re not paying for some sort of public library through your taxes, you don’t deserve a free ride elsewhere. We can argue until the sun goes down about whether it’s fair to penalize high school kids because their parents – in most cases without premeditation – moved to a town without a library. Instead, why not offer that town adjunct status with Ridgewood if they come up with an extra $42,000 this year? Since there’s no library board, this could be a council job. Many people from Glen Rock and Ho-Ho-Kus frequent the Ridgewood Library in addition to their own libraries. If they want to go to a library on Sunday they generally have no choice except to frequent the Ridgewood Library. This is now, I suspect, also true of Wyckoff where the Wyckoff Free Public Library is undergoing renovations and a satellite library is open for the duration. Why not approach Glen Rock, Wyckoff, Ho-Ho-Kus, and possibly also Midland Park and Waldwick and see if they want to subsidize a major share of the remaining cost of keeping Ridgewood open on Sundays 12 months of the year? This could not only be a great way to keep the Ridgewood Library open for people who pay their taxes but can’t afford to get out of town for two months every summer – or simply don’t want to. This could be a great step in what eventually must happen: regionalized emergency services and schools because the individual towns can no longer afford the tax burden of programs that some people need a lot and other people don’t need at all and don’t want to pay for. Libraries are the right place to start. They’re important, but their absence, while painful, is not life-threatening – merely mind-threatening. How do we keep the Ridgewood Library open on Sundays through the summer without putting an excessive burden on the Ridgewood taxpayers, who have already suffered enough on behalf the rest of us? As it stands now, the Ridgewood Library – I think the only library in Northwest Bergen County that stays open on Sunday afternoons through the summer – will be closing on Sundays from June 26 until after Labor Day. The library will also close on three Fridays, including the day after Thanksgiving. The Friday closings are survivable losses, but losing every Sunday between the end of June and the beginning of September will be a serious hardship for a lot of people, not just in Ridgewood, but all over Northwest Bergen County. Library Director Nancy Greene pointed out that 18 percent of Ridgewood households earn less than $50,000 a year. These families don’t own summer houses at the mountains or the shore. If they have kids, they may be able to afford Graydon Pool or the Ridgewood Summer Recreation Program, which is affordable fun for younger kids and a bargain at the price. After that, it’s the Ridgewood Library or nothing except hanging around. Some of the households also consist of senior citizens, couples or singles, and these people also tend to make good use of the Ridgewood Library for a number of reasons: It’s air conditioned, there is a huge inventory of regular and large-print books, and many special programs are offered there. Take an example some might think facetious: “Read to a Dog.” On the surface, it sounds like an absurdity, but studies show that it’s actually a valuable program. The child sits next to a dog, usually a very docile golden retriever or Labrador retriever, and reads large-print stories while the dog sits contentedly enjoying the attention. I’m a cynical man, and I expect that if the dog were asked to summarize the story, the results would not be impressive, but that’s not the point. The child enjoys reading to the dog because the dog is an amicable, non-critical audience for the reading. The dog never breaks in to say, “Hey, you got that word wrong!” The dog doesn’t make hostile comments about the people described in the story. The dog just sits there smiling while the child provides the entertainment – and experiences responsibility and control. A bunch of tests at places like Columbia Teachers College indicate that “Read to a Dog” actually encourages children to enjoy reading, which encourages them to read more and, eventually, to read better. Volunteers provide the dogs. The library should provide the space. Then there are the English as a Second Language programs. Schools and peers give youngsters a chance to learn English by osmosis, but adults have no such option. The ESL programs allow people from every ethnic group under the sun to practice their English with American volunteers and with people from other ethnic groups. The conversations are amicable, if somewhat guarded. The various ethnic groups sometimes express drastically different opinions among themselves. “People are always smiling, but you never know what The fiscal fight for the last redoubt Letters to the Editor Dear Editor: On behalf of the 2011 Wyckoff Memorial Day Parade Committee and Midland Park/Wyckoff VFW Post 7086, I would like to thank all who participated and attended this year’s Memorial Day Service and Parade. This year’s service and parade could not have been such a success without the participation of all the organizations that make our township such a great place to live. I would like to specifically thank the organizations (both public and private) that donated resources that enable the Parade Committee to continue to provide such a great event: Wyckoff Police and Fire departments, Wyckoff CERT members, Wyckoff DPW, Hekemian & Co., Inc., Stop & Shop, Vander Plaat Funeral Home, HMS Global Holdings, the Dr. Louis Spizziri Trust, Landscapeworks, Inc., Atlantic Stewardship Bank, Dr. Joseph Gartner, Horizon Landscape Co., Inc., A.A. American Moving & Storage, Inc., Walgreens -- Clinton Avenue, Cedar Hill Associates, and all the organizations that donated floral tributes. Please continue to honor those service men and women who have given their lives for our country and continue to support our troops deployed today in combat zones throughout the world. Nick Ciampo, Chairman Wyckoff Memorial Day Parade Committee Dear Editor: In his recent letter to the editor, Mayor Joseph Monahan Community support lauded Questions intentions expressed himself as “not liking surprise tactics.” This was in regard to Councilman O’Hagan’s presentation of a nonagenda motion at the May 26 council meeting, namely the promotions of Sergeant Michael Marra and Detective John Gibbons of the Midland Park Police Department. I find Mayor Monahan’s antipathy to be rather odd, considering that his own late bid for the Midland Park Council, after announcing he would not seek a second term as mayor, surprised a great many people. Furthermore, Mayor Monahan stated in his letter that he observed some council members voting on the motion in a hesitant manner due to the lack of discussion before it was introduced. In light of the caliber and dedication of the two police officers in question, I cannot really imagine that anyone on the council hesitated to approve their promotions. It seems to me that this issue was manufactured solely for the purpose of publicly criticizing Councilman O’Hagan, and I hope it does not indicate that we are in for five months of campaigning by means of finger-pointing and accusations, rather than by the candidates’ communication of their own positions and intentions. The mayoral candidates, Bud O’Hagan and Russ Kamp, are known entities in Midland Park. I hope their campaign strategies – and those of their council running mates - will consist of explaining how their very different ideologies support their vision of good government for our town. We hear enough negative campaigning at the state and national levels. Lynn Atkinson Midland Park