The grounds of the closed down Spinney branch of the Wareham Library in Onset were becoming rife with overgrowth, so resident Dick Paulsen decided to do something about it himself.

Thursday morning, Paulsen grabbed his weedwhacker and got to work.

"What should be something to be proud of is hardly that," said Paulsen of the Spinney building on Onset Avenue.

He added that the people who helped fund the building's construction deserve to see it maintained.

"It's really a shame that the town had to let this go," he said.

The Spinney branch closed at the beginning of July due to a lack of town funding. In the balanced budget passed by Town Meeting in April, the town allocated $125,000 to the library. The Proposition 2 1/2 override budget, which voters rejected in June, would have given the library $425,000.

For future maintenance of the building and grounds, Paulsen suggested that the town allow seniors to work on the building as part of the senior Work-Off program, which allows senior citizens to obtain tax write-offs for service hours.