POLAND — The Poland Library has been the subject of deep discussion and great debate in recent months, and its fate may soon be decided.

But a group of concerned citizens says they at least want the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County to hear their voices before making any drastic moves.

“Small towns are dying in this country, and if you don’t have something that anchors your town, things start to fall away. And that’s the anchor in this village,” said Patti Wanat, who sits on the committee and Poland Village’s architectural review board. “And it gets utilized for so much more, which are the things that the library stresses they want the libraries to be. They want community spaces. I attend several meetings a month over at the library because people use it as a gathering space. The cafe, I’m there all the time. The bookstore. But there’s so many more reasons for keeping it here.”

On Thursday, the library’s Buildings and Sites Committee will meet at the Newport Branch. Library executives will present the findings of their year-long study into the Poland branch’s condition and the costs of either renovating it or relocating the branch. The committee can accept either suggestion or ask for more information. If the committee decides to adopt renovation or relocation, they will recommend that decision to the full library board of trustees on April 29.

If the branch is relocated, library Chief Stakeholder Relations Officer Zak Kozberg said, the building would likely be sold.

A March Vindicator article detailed how maintenance costs for the Poland and Austintown branches since 2024 have been outpaced only by the main branch downtown and by East. Costs for Poland during that time exceeded $492,000.

Austintown cost the library system about $143,300 in 2024 and just under $200,000 last year. Poland’s maintenance costs were just over $193,000 in 2024 and about $211,000 in 2025. Both are on track to be considerably higher than all other branches again this year.

Kozberg said Poland has become the number one subject library patrons ask staff about, to the detriment of the library’s ability to inform residents about the many beneficial programs.

Kozberg said it is important to note that the Poland community will not lose library services under any circumstances, but the board and executive leadership need to consider what is best and most manageable for the entire library system.

“We have limited resources and we have an entire county of libraries to concern ourselves with, all of which have different and unique problems,” he said.

Kozberg said the library has made great efforts to engage the public and keep residents informed.

On Nov. 7, Chief Operating Officer Jordan Shaver gave a tour of the Poland library, attended by county commissioners, the Mahoning County prosecutor and select local elected officials, and some members of the committee were in attendance and able to ask questions.

Members of the Poland committee spoke with The Vindicator in late March, though, and said they do not feel the library board or executives are listening to their concerns for their community.

Joan Smith, of the Poland committee, said board meetings leave village and township residents feeling unheard and left out – they are only permitted three minutes to speak and the board’s policy is not to comment – and they cannot reach library staff.

“So there were just very minimal conversations, but we have not been able to sit down and

have a one-on-one conversation, which we very much want to have,” Smith said. “So we’ve been in touch with the building and sites committee and we are waiting for a call back from them, giving us a date. We’ve requested who we’d like to meet with.”

Kozberg said a meeting did occur Tuesday afternoon at the main branch downtown between nine members of the Poland committee and Shaver, Strategic Communications Officer Michael Stepp, Buildings and Sites Committee Chair Ron Strollo, and committee member and former Library Board VP Tom Frost.

“Today, representatives from the PLYMC Board, Building & Sites Committee, and Administration met with representatives from the Save the Library Group in Poland to discuss the future of the Poland Branch of PLYMC,” Kozberg said. “We have met with community members on this issue on several occasions in the past and will continue to listen as we find the most cost effective way to continue to provide library programs and services to the entire county in a political environment that has placed library funding at risk.”

A representative of Poland’s committee did not reply to a request for comment on the meeting.

During a specially organized spring meeting of the library’s board of trustees last year, after executives presented them with all the available information on the library’s condition, the board voted to investigate and explore the possibility of relocating the branch. The results of that investigation are what will be discussed and made public on Thursday.

Following that vote, the library hosted a moderated public forum in the basement community room at the Poland branch in June. It was attended by roughly 200 residents, including members of the current Poland committee, Kozberg said.

He said at least six people are already signed up to speak at Thursday’s meeting.

Kozberg said some members of the community have not been particularly pleasant in their interactions with the Poland branch staff or executives.

A reply to a fundraising email sent March 9, asking for support to overcome state and federal cuts to the public library system, was met with the following [sender’s name redacted]:

“Zack [sic], I will never support the library system if you insist on closing our Poland library. And I know many people who feel the same way I do. I think the library system needs to be very careful about how you proceed.”

CARE AND CONCERN

Poland’s committee members, though, insist that they have no desire to engage dishonestly or disrespectfully with the board or staff. They only want to be heard and explain why the building is so important.

“Our group is mainly focused on saving our library,” said Larry Bartos. “And we’re a very positive group. This is the nicest committee I’ve ever been on.”

Bartos and his fellow committee members, at a March 25 meeting with The Vindicator at Poland Village Town Hall, said the building is one of only two Ohio libraries in a nationally published book, “Part of the Community: The Libraries we Love.” The other is a branch in Cincinnati.

“When this library was built, I was so excited because the architecture fits in with the community,” Bartos said. “It has a wonderful location for the schools. And to think about moving it is very upsetting.”

Smith said students at McKinley Elementary, within safe walking distance of the library, shared their feelings and drew pictures.

“I don’t know what I will do if I can’t see my library in Poland. It is beautiful and I can walk there from my house. You will make the whole town sad if you take our library away. Please don’t make our town so sad,” wrote one student.

Smith said all of the 100 letters echoed similar sentiments.

Smith said they have collected more than 3,000 signatures from residents all over Mahoning County in support of keeping the branch where it is. She said the petition is not like a political petition and there is no formal threshold of signatures to meet or any specific objective other than showing the board the degree of public support.

Wanat and Bartos said the numbers, as they understand them, would be $6.1 million to fix the Poland branch and $12 million to build a new library.

“And the new library is not even half the size of that one. It’s 5,000 square foot, and that one’s about 32 [thousand]. And the $12 million doesn’t include whatever they spend for the property to build it on,” said committee member and Poland Village Councilwoman Laurie Laplante.

But Kozberg said those figures are outdated and come from an old presentation on the library’s facilities master plan.

“That is a series of recommendations and guesses, based on the work of the two firms that completed that report,” he said. “Those are not the same firms we have contracted to do an assessment.”

He said all of the new information will be made available at Thursday’s meeting.

“That will include a best guess for the costs to renovate or relocate, factoring in low, medium or high costs, and the estimated maintenance costs over 30 years between the current building or a new building.”

The Poland committee does not want a new building, though. They say the current one has been part of their community since before its completion.

“We raised funds for that library,” said Dee Dee Graff. “The only community that I know of that raised funds for the library we have. …Goodness, people donated the cupola, people donated the elevator.”

Bartos said $1.2 million was raised by the community. That money was donated to the construction of the building through the Youngstown Foundation, Kozberg said.

In front of the library, Bartos notes, is a fountain designed and sculpted by local artist Tom Antonishak, depicting two children reading.

“And … we have raised funds for a statue of William McKinley that’s going to be placed right out here, facing the library,” Bartos said.

Bartos and other committee members noted that the library also is attached to the Old Dormitory building, which housed boys attending the seminary school for which Poland’s high school is named, during the time the 25th U.S. president was attending school in the village.

Graff said the Wetzel Family gave $100,000 for the library’s dome, while John MacIntosh donated most or all of the funds for the elevator. Graff said the wheelchair-bound man gave the elevator in honor of his late mother, Elizabeth, a school teacher, to ensure that everyone in the community could have proper access to the building.

The committee said they do not understand why the library would consider abandoning the building.

“We know that it’s structurally sound. It doesn’t have to be done immediately,” Bartos said. “It’s not going to fall apart or anything … we just want to keep it here.”

“We have really knowledgeable people in this group, and one person has been in construction in Mahoning County for 30 years,” LaPlante said. “And he looked at the detailed engineer’s report that came out four or five years ago. Everything is fixable. Every problem that has been identified over there is fixable and is given a solution in this report that he’s looked at. So sometimes I feel like they projected that the building’s going to fall down tomorrow.”

Read more about the issues at the Poland Library at www.vindy.com/news/local-news/2026/03/costs-soar-for-upkeep-at-three-mahoning-public-libraries/.