At their regular meeting yesterday, the Board of Supervisors voted to postpone the construction of the new Crozet Library.

According to Mike Marshall, owner and publisher of the Crozet Gazzette, in early November, county staff put out a report warning residents and officials that the library construction could be postponed.'

“I don’t agree with the vote,” Marshall told C-VILLE, adding that he wishes the Supervisors would have looked at different options more creatively.

Marshall says that the vote is not a very good government decision considering the option of using stimulus money and the advantageous construction prices. “The longer they delay, the more and more expensive it will get.”

While Marshall is “chagrined” by the vote, Crozet residents have learned to wait. In fact, according to Marshall, the library has been in the works since 1995. But will the delay postpone the vision of the Crozet Master Plan, which, among other aspects, advertises a more vibrant downtown?

For Marshall, it will. “It certainly hurts,” he says. “The library attracts people into downtown,” and without such a prominent public building, he says people might not be swayed into coming to downtown Crozet.

As approved, the design calls for 18,000 square feet of library space with an additional shelf space of around 5,000 square feet, a much larger facility compared to the 1,900-square-foot existing library.