Members of the Fallston community who are upset about the potential closing of their library branch will get a second chance to voice their support for keeping it open.

And, there’s still a possibility the closure can be avoided, a library system trustee says.

At 6 p.m. Thursday at Fallston High School, the Harford County Public Library Board of Trustees will host a second public hearing regarding the possible closure of the Fallston branch.

Library Director Audra Caplan said the board of trustees members decided to conduct a second public hearing after more than 200 protesters attended last Thursday’s public hearing.

“Everybody thinks it’s really important,” Caplan said. “It was certainly clearly stated people love libraries. It was pretty remarkable actually. Everybody saw clearly this is a really important institution in our community as it would be anywhere. We understood that all along.”

Thursday’s crowd made an impact on Greg Seltzer, who represents the Fallston area on the library board.

“I was very impressed with the folks who showed up and spoke from their heart,” Seltzer said. “They got a petition drive going. They’re waving signs at the library. It’s really a good group of people who realize our Fallston library resource. If you take anything from us, don’t take away the library which we fought for 25 years ago to bring to the community.”

Because of tremendous response last week, Seltzer requested the board host a second public hearing to accommodate everyone who wishes to speak.

“I believe people needed to have a larger venue to speak in,” Seltzer said. “I demanded from the chair [Bill Nicodemus] that we meet in a larger area and I think I convinced the majority of board members to keep the Fallston library open.”

Following last week’s meeting, Caplan said the board members decided “they wanted to go back and spend time deliberating and examining the budget again and having that time to make the best decision possible.”

“We’re working with small groups of board members over the next two days to do that and hopefully have some result out of that,” Caplan said.

At the conclusion of this week’s hearing, the board will hold a special session to vote on the library’s final budget, closing branches on Sunday and whether to close the Fallston branch completely.

While it is possible the board will vote to keep the Fallston branch open, the decision will come with consequences to services across the library system.

“Hopefully we’ll keep Fallston open,” Seltzer said. “We’re going to take a hit in the materials budget. There will not be as many magazines and books as we want. There may not be as many hours as they want, but at least we’re not closing any of the 11 branches. We’re doing the best we can in this situation.”

Caplan said materials and services across the system may be cut, library hours may be reduced and all branches may have to close on Sunday. Currently, there are no Sunday hours May through October.

“The plan is to have reduced hours everywhere,” Caplan said.

Caplan said seven library staff members were laid off Friday as a result of budget cuts.

“We had already cut every other area and we’re looking at cutting even more,” Caplan said. “Obviously we had to cut the staff and lay off people whether we close Fallston or not ... If, in fact, we maintain all 11 branches, we would have cut beyond the bone now. If we take any additional budget cuts, I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

Seltzer advised people wishing to speak at Thursday’s meeting to arrive early.

“Hopefully we’ll have a big crowd there. I think the board understands the demand,” Seltzer said. “It would be the same in Joppatowne or Norrisville or Havre de Grace, it’s just not Fallston. Everybody would show up. We would be energized anywhere in this county because we love our libraries so much.”

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