Greenwood. A place where championship football titles hang heavy, restaurants blend amongst broken up piles of buildings, traffic backs up farther than the horizon, and the only big store lies nearly outside of town. Greenwood. A town where there is an unbelieveable amount of school pride and unshameful fire for the football team. Greenwood. A community of happy and loving faces all brought together by their pride in their town.

If I were to be mayor of my town, there would be many issues I could address. I could address the traffic issue or the cracked roads to even fixing up some of the small family run restaurants that slowly seem to keep fading to the background and out of sight. As mayor, I could also choose to fix up town buildings or add a community recreation center. All of these issues are important and need to be addressed eventually. If I were mayor, the issue I would address would be the library.

The library has always been a staple in our community. All lovers of reading and books love going there to find new adventures to dive into. For some, it’s a way to travel somewhere else without having to pay for it, and to others it’s just an overall escape from reality.  It holds a cosy and meaningful atmosphere, but if you’ve never been or don’t know the workers, it comes off as intimidating and unwelcoming. Our library is over 60 years old and it’s tucked back behind other buildings in the middle of a church campus. It’s hard to find if you don’t know exactly where it is. It also has never been renovated or fixed up in any way. There are parts of the building that look ready to collapse upon the weight of decades of good memories with the people of the town, and all of the books. It’s possible if the tall bookcases weren’t lined up, the building would implode on itself.

On top of the building being out of date, the books are just as old. They hardly replace or purchase books, because there is no funding for the library. Most of the books on shelves have tape on them or they are even missing pages. This causes the books to continue to get into a worse condition to where the strips of tape are no longer able to hold the stories together. At that point, the book has to be thrown away and is never replaced. This results in the library gradually losing books and not being able to replace them. The book inventory is just going to keep going down. If people continue to finish the books that interested them, they’ll stop coming because there will be nothing left to re-read.

If I were to be granted the money to fix the library, the first thing I would pay to have done was for it to be torn down and relocated somewhere closer to the town square. At the new location, it would be rebuilt and made much bigger. The new library would be completely up-to-date with new furnishing and new books. With the library being bigger, this would also allow for there to be rooms dedicated to people studying, reading, working on computers, and even to work on group collaborations. With more space and in a different location, more of the community would be likely to go.

I believe our community need this renovation because it gives a place for children, teens, and adults to go read, study, or work on paperwork from the office. The new library would promote education to the highest extent. Teenagers and college students would have a new place to study and do homework, as well as have a place filled with all of the resources they would need. The new library would have more books, a better updated computer system, newspapers and magazines, and plenty of space to spread out and hold study groups or group collaborations.

As mayor, I would complete this task by getting a movement set up by the citizens. There are enough people to back it up there wouldn’t be any issues getting it started and organized. Next, I would write an appeal to get the grant for the new library with all new books with up-to-date computer systems. Finally, I would have a petition signed by citizens who believe a new library is in order. Once I had the grant, I would carry out demolishing the library, relocating and rebuilding it, and refurbishing it.

If I were mayor of my town, the library would be the first issue I would address. The library promotes education and gives a place to study or work on group collaborations. Rebuilding the library would promote education and a love for reading throughout the community. Rebuilding the library would be replacing a bent staple in our community.