Thursday was a busy day in Main Library history. The city aired its new proposed budget in public meetings at two of our toniest semi-private locations–Long Beach Yacht Club, and the Petroleum Club–at both of which the library could theoretically be discussed.

Then, out of public view, City Manager Pat West met with the so-called Library Task Force–including Friends of the Library, and members of the Long Beach Public Library Foundation–to talk satellite library location.

(The city, you’ll recall, now plans to close Main Library at some undetermined time in the future–once a satellite Main Library is opened–to save an estimated $1.8 million in the proposed Fiscal Year 2008-2009 budget.)

We attended the Petroleum Club event Thursday, and the fate of Main Library did indeed come up, briefly.

“How’s the north Long Beach library cost $20 million and the Main Library will be done for $18 million?” wondered Long Beach resident Jahn Hardison–citing the price tag on the new north Long Beach library the city is getting ready to build, and the money earmarked for a new permanent Main Library, in Mayor Bob Foster’s $571 million infrastructure bond, which needs a two-thirds vote in November.

“You’re voting to shut it down before the Task Force is finished and maybe there’s money and maybe there’s not? It all just seems a little hazy,” Hardison wondered–and by “you,” he meant Long Beach City Council.

West tried to reassure him that the city could save money if it builds a new Main Library downtown–because it owns a lot of vacant land downtown.

The only question, it seemed, was where a new library would go–and the city, West said after the meeting, has a long list of potential locations for the satellite library. Ready?

Possibilities include both the former California Veterans Memorial State Office Building at Broadway and Cedar Avenue and the parking lot behind it; the parking lot near Cesar Chavez Elementary School, at the west end of Third Street; the City Place development, at Pine Avenue and Fifth Street; and the Press-Telegram Lofts (which, so far as we’re aware, consists mainly of an empty, partially-gutted Press-Telegram).

But wait–there’s more. The longtime barber college building at Third Street and The Promenade is in the mix. So is the northeast corner of First Street and Long Beach Boulevard, where Long Beach Police Department relocated while its headquarters were being remodeled.

So is the Bank of America building at Broadway and Long Beach Boulevard. So, too, is the Broadway Block, at Long Beach Boulevard and Third Street–where Acres of Books’ going-out-of-business sale grinds onward. (I know that’s ironic somehow.)

That’s it! Long Beach City Council may vote on the new budget–and plans to close Main Library–as soon as Sept. 9, just two weeks from now.

And Jahn Hardison is right: citizens still don’t know exactly how a new Main Library would be paid for, or where it or a satellite library would be built–or what exactly a satellite library would even be.

Seems like a lot of unresolved issues to resolve in two weeks, doesn’t it?

Tags: Bank of America building, Broadway Block, California, California Veterans Memorial State Office Building, Cesar Chavez Elementary School, City Manager Pat West, City Place, Fiscal Year 2008-2009 budget, Jahn Hardison, Long Beach, Long Beach City Council, Long Beach Yacht Club, Main Library closure, Petroleum Club, Press-Telegram Lofts, Southern California, The District Weekly, Theo Douglas