Five months after residents voted down taxes that fund library and drainage services in West Baton Rouge, the parish library is gearing up to again ask voters what they say is an existential question: Do they want a library or not?

“I really don’t believe that people in West Baton Rouge don’t want a library,” Library Executive Director Tamie Martin said. “I think that it was a case of voter apathy, very low turnout. A lot of people believe, ‘Why do I need to go vote for the library, because who’s going to vote against it?’ Well, somebody did.”

The millage, or property tax , will reappear on the Nov. 15 ballot. It makes up the lion's share of the library budget, and without it, the library cannot exist, Martin emphasized.

The tax rate is set up to 4.1 mills for the next 10 years and p

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