“Mob Rule…Mob Rule” Yells Narragansett Town Council President After Criticism of Cutting Library

Narragansett Library advocates charge that the current Narragansett Town Council majority — Matthew Mannix, Jill Lawler and Richard Lema — are “spiteful and vindictive” after they voted to slash the budget of the Maury Loontjens Memorial Library by more than 50%.

As the crowd voiced disapproval after the vote, Mannix stormed out of the meeting repeating yelling “Mob Rule…Mob Rule.”

Advocates claim that the Town’s cut will mean a loss of $181,000 in state matching funds and will likely force the library to furlough employees, reduce library hour, and reduce library services for the residents of Narragansett.

“I’ve been involved in Narragansett politics for a long time, but I never thought I’d see the day when the Town Council would intentionally vote to hurt one of our town’s most important institutions,” said library champion and former Town Council President Susan Cicilline Buonanno. “There is no drastic budget shortfall or any other logical reason for tonight’s vote to hobble our library. The only reason is outright spite from Councilors Mannix, Lawler, and Lema who cannot stand the fact that so many Narragansett residents have had the audacity to demand that the Council follow the will of the town’s voters by allowing our library to move into the former Belmont building, as was approved by 68% of voters in 2016. This outrage will not stand, and I can guarantee that the vocal majority of Narragansett residents who have shown up at nearly every Town Council meeting for the past six months, will vote this Council majority out of office come 2020.”

“There is something deeply wrong when our Town Council votes to sell the very building approved to be the new home of our library, and then doubles down by voting to slash our library’s budget by 50%,” said Nancy DeNuccio, President of the Love Your Library Coalition. “This is a library we are talking about. An institution that brings learning, books, and joy to our entire community. But not to Councilors Mannix, Lawler, and Lema who are treating it like a pawn in whatever petty political game they think they are playing. These Councilors may have temporarily cut the budget of our amazing library, but they have not cut the spirit of the vocal majority of Narragansett residents who have rallied together to support our library. Tonight’s outrageous vote will have consequences in 2020, when these Councilors will be voted out and replaced by new members who support full funding for our library and the new home in the Belmont building that voters have already approved.”

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