Letters to the Editor

Library director announces summer programs, new location

To the Editor:

To Westminster Residents:

The Forbush Memorial Library reopened at its temporary location at 100 Simplex Drive at 1 p.m., Tuesday May 13.We are located in the part of the building facing Route 2 with the sundial immediately outside the front door. Many locals knew our location as the cafeteria in the former Digital/Simplex complex.

We are pleased to report that the move went smoothly and that you have a great staff working for you. Summer program planning is well underway. This is what we have so far.

• Story hours resume Wednesday, May 21. Parents, please call the Library at (978) 874-7416 to sign up your children.

• There will be an ice cream social for families (rain or shine) Saturday, June 7, at our temporary location.

• At 11 a.m., on June 14 (Saturday), we look forward to a visit from an escape artist.

• Book club meetings begin again in June. On the 16th, the Monday Mystery Book Club will meet from 1-2 p.m. The mystery readers are doing Tess Gerritsen's "Life Support," a medical thriller. The Monday Night Book Club will meet June 23 from 6:30-7:30 p.m. In June they'll be reading "The Cabinet of Curiosities" by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child.

• The summer reading program will run from June 23 through August 6. The finale will be a party with Blinki the Clown and ice cream. The theme of Forbush's summer reading program is Ice Cream. Stay tuned for the date to start making reservations.

• Until the end of June, the library hours will be Mondays Tuesdays, 1-8 p.m.; Wednesdays-Thursdays, 10 a.m. - 8 p.m.; Fridays, 10 a.m.- 6 p.m., and Saturdays, 10a.m. - 2 p.m.

As of Wednesday, May 14, holds may be placed on books in the Forbush Library for pickup. Please remember that items listed in the Westminster online catalog marked "storage" and not available until we return to the Forbush Memorial Library on Main Street. Items marked "check shelves" are available. To the temporary location we moved the audio books on CD, DVDs, music CDs, a broad selection of books acquired in the past two years, as well as more than 4,000 children's books. Most Forbush books and DVDs checked out before we moved aren't due until May 15. The book return box should arrive by the end of May, but until then, come on in to see us when you return books to us.

We've missed you.

Margaret Howe-Soper, Director Forbush Memorial Library, Westminster

Amicable solution would include payment to Westminster

To the Editor:

The town of Ashburnham treats Oakmont as town property … they use the auditorium for their town meetings, they use the VonDeck Room for Board of Selectmen meetings (unless they need to vote on something that hurts the entire Regional School District). When they first asked to use the Oakmont rooms for town offices, they expected to get it for free.

Now they have the nerve to say the following:

"Gagnon said the Selectmen should ask officials at the Ashburnham-Westminster Regional School District to reduce the rent the town is paying to the district in exchange for leaving the $50,000 fiber optic cables (that run the town's phone system) in the high school, where the town is temporary housing their offices.

"We should try to get some of that value back in some kind of amicable manor," he said," according to a Community Journal article.

I really don't think amicable is a word in Mr. Gagnon's lexicon. My suggestion: Give Westminster $25,000 in cash and then ask for the $50,000 reduction in rent.

Works for me.

Pete Janhunen

Westminster