EAST COBB - As news that most of the county's libraries may be forced to close their doors in as little as three weeks sunk in on Friday, the reaction was not good.

"What did we do to be left with nothing?" asked east Cobb Commissioner Bob Ott, whose district stands to lose all of its libraries. "It's not fair to the citizens of District 2 to have nothing as a result of this proposal. They pay the same taxes as everyone else in this county."

The proposal for closing the immediate, $31 million budget hole was made public Thursday afternoon by County Chairman Tim Lee. It includes a property tax increase to shore up the fire fund, and across-the-board cuts of 3.5 percent in the county budget.

Of the county's 17 libraries, only the four regional libraries would stay open. Those are the Central Library, near the Marietta Square; Mountain View, on Sandy Plains Road near Shallowford Road; South Cobb, in Mableton; and West Cobb, off of Mars Hill Road.

Three senior centers, in north Cobb and Smyrna, would also close, as would some outdoor swimming pools.

In Ott's district, the idea of closing the new East Cobb Library had plenty of people scratching their heads. There is no regional library in that part of the county.

But closing the library, which has been open just over a year, will still cost the county. The county leases the 16,864-square-foot space in the Parkaire Landing shopping center for about $168,000 per year under a 20-year lease. Breaking that lease, which requires six months' notice, and repaying a remodeling credit granted by the landlord will cost the county about $500,000.

Shadi Fahadan, 34, who is pregnant with her second child, said she visits the East Cobb Library at least once each week. She also volunteers there.

"Library resources have been good for my daughter. She's a good reader now," Fahadan said of her child, who is in pre-kindergarten. "The only reason was bringing her to the story time every week. I was planning to bring another once to the story time," she said, rubbing her belly.

She hasn't told her daughter yet that the library will likely be closing.

"She's going to be very sad," Fahadan said. She lives near the East Cobb Library, and the Mountain View library, while nice, is much further from her home.

"I can't go there as much as I come here," she said. "It's too far."

Mary Dehaye also lives near the East Cobb Library, which she said is "very popular."

"It's one of the few benefits you see from taxes," Dehaye said. "Everybody has access to a library. It makes me angry" that it could be closed, she said.

The county is continuing to receive comments via email and its website about the budget cuts, and county spokesman Robert Quigley said that through noon on Friday, more than 700 emails and hundreds of phone calls have come in. The email address is budgetcomments@cobbcounty.org.

Meanwhile, a "Save Cobb Libraries" page cropped up Friday on Facebook.

The county also leases space for the Sweetwater Valley Library, in Austell's Threadmill Complex. That lease costs about $1,000 per month, and county officials were unsure on Friday of the terms to end that lease, Quigley said.

The Kennesaw Library, where Sheryl Manley leads a book discussion group, is another branch that may close.

"I'm just horrified that the people who use these computers to look for jobs won't have the access," said Manley, of Marietta.

On Thursday morning, Kennesaw Library worker Teresa Sutton received her 15-year service plaque.

"And in the afternoon, we got the news that they were closing a majority of the libraries," Sutton said. "I know we help people. I see it every single day."

Former county commissioner Thea Powell said Lee's budget recommendations don't seem "particularly thoughtful as the impact on the community."

"By doing this broad-brush, you've essentially ignored a significant portion of your population, because they are not equally distributed among the districts," Powell said.

Larry Savage, who unsuccessfully challenged Lee last year in the race for chairman, said these cuts won't solve the problem.

"We don't have a five-month problem, we have a five-year problem," Savage said. Unless the county figures out its needs for a longer term, "we're going to have to revisit this every few months."

"Then people are constantly in fear of the future, and there's always going to be another shoe to drop," Savage said.

If the cuts are approved during Tuesday's commission meeting, the closures would take effect on May 1. It seems likely that the four libraries left open would see heavier traffic, meaning longer waits for things like computers.

Gill Evert, of Marietta, was reading a magazine Friday morning at the Central Library, on Roswell Street in Marietta.

"The library is such a valuable resource of free information in one building along with computer access," Evert said. "I'm a big fan of the library, but at the same time I understand the budget. You can't buy what you can't afford, and that is what we have done with this budget."

Mary Smith, of Marietta, was reading with her children at Central Library on Friday.

"My kids are all avid readers and I would like to continue to promote that," she said. "It's just not affordable to go out and buy books."

Central Library employee Beth Silzle, who has worked for the county's library system for seven years, said no one saw the closures coming.

"We knew that furlough days were a possibility. We knew that reducing hours - again - was a possibility. We had no idea that closing 13 libraries was a possibility," Silzle said. Staff learned of the closings in a meeting Thursday afternoon.

"The director called all the branches in tears," she said.

Jon-Michael Sullivan and Erin Gray contributed to this story.