As John Canalis reports in today’s Press-Telegram, the question of whether Main Library will actually close–as recommended by City Manager Pat West and Mayor Bob Foster in the proposed Fiscal Year 2008-2009 budget, released Friday–is far from resolved.

For one thing, Long Beach City Council hasn’t even begun debating the budget yet–and ultimately, the Council is the government entity that must approve the budget, not the mayor or the city manager.

You can get your first look at the budget tomorrow afternoon at 3:30 in Council Chambers, 333 W. Ocean Blvd., during a budget study session that’s open to the public.

The mayor and the city manager say closing the library, which has plumbing and irrigation leaks that would cost more than $8 million to fix, could save an estimated $1.86 million.

But, as the P-T also reports, the Long Beach Public Library Foundation, a nonprofit that raises funds to cover core library expenses not covered by the city, is fighting to keep Main Library open.

And this isn’t some Johnny-come-lately effort launched “not long after the Long Beach mayor and city manager announced their budget recommendations to the City Council on Friday.”

The city’s manager’s recommendation to close Main Library originated last month in conversations with members of Long Beach City Council–before it appeared in the FY ‘09 budget–and the campaign to keep it open began last month as well.

The District Weekly spoke last week with the man who was city councilman when our Civic Center was built starting in 1973, and mayor when it first opened, Dr. Thomas J. Clark. And Clark told The District Weekly that he signed a petition at church services in late July, to help keep the library open.

“I don’t know why you’d have to shut it down if you don’t have anything in the offing,” Clark said, questioning why, regardless of the money it could save, the city should shut Main Library down with no precise plan to replace it.

Folks collecting signatures to keep Main Library open also had a table set up outside the library on Friday morning, as reporters arrived at Civic Center to hear about the new budget.

(Makes you think: if pro-Main Library folks were able to mobilize this quickly, maybe they should be trying to get a write-in candidate on the November ballot, to oppose Congressional Rep. Laura Richardson, D-Long Beach.)

According to the P-T, the city will try to compensate for the library closure–if it happens–by beefing up hours at the city’s branch libraries and setting up “a temporary center for computer users and downtown patrons to pick up books ordered at other branches or through the library Web site.”

But Sara Pillet, executive director of the Foundation, told The District Weekly last week that this won’t necessarily help folks downtown who don’t have the transportation to go elsewhere, and for whom this really is their neighborhood library.

According to Pillet, some of those library users are school-age children–an estimated 4,000 of whom turn to the library each year for help with their homework. Will they all be able to fit into this “temporary center”?

Tags: California, closing main library, Congressional Rep Laura Richardson (D-Long Beach), john canalis, Long Beach, Long Beach Main Library, Long Beach Public Library Foundation, press telegram, Sara Pillet, Southern California, The District Weekly, Theo Douglas