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“WE’RE LOSING THE PUBLIC TRUST” ON MAIN LIBRARY

Theo DouglasWed. September 03
 

Long Beach City Council grapples with Main Library issue

Where does last night’s Long Beach City Council budget study session on closing Main Library leave those of us who live here?

That’s an interesting question–and with just 12 days and one council meeting until the council must approve the Fiscal Year 2008-2009 budget, it’s still impossible to say what nine city council representatives and one mayor will do with our Main Library.

The picture got a little clearer after last night’s budget study session, however.

Five council members discussed possibly removing the Main Library proposal from the budget entirely, or exploring other money-saving options–including possible layoffs of library employees, rolling closures of Main Library and our 11 branch libraries, and closing Main Library during the Christmas holiday season.

Council members also raised the possibility of finding the estimated $1.8 million the city wants to save by closing Main Library elsewhere–by trimming other city services and/or library services; by trimming library budgets; or by the speedy implementation of the boot program for parking ticket scofflaws recently suggested by City Auditor Laura Doud.

“There seems to be one thing after another where the community is surprised by something that is proposed. I really think we should be respectful of changes,” said Eighth District Councilwoman Rae Gabelich.

“I just really think we should be pulling this [from the proposed budget] and have the discussion when the other [satellite library] locations are more accurately defined.”

First District Councilwoman Bonnie Lowenthal started off council discussion about closing Main Library, which the city has suggested as a way to save $1.8 million in the proposed budget, and deal with persistent water leaks and a city-commissioned seismic study last year which found that in a large earthquake–7.2 or larger, on the Newport-Inglewood Fault–the library could conceivably collapse upon itself.

“I have a question about the study the engineers did,” said Lowenthal. “They did not call for a closure of the library. If they thought there was imminent danger … would they not have called for closure of the library in their recommendation?”

“This was a study that was required by the Federal Emergency Management Agency [in response to Hurricane Katrina], to study life-safety issues and the ability to exit a building,” said Public Works Director Mike Conway. “It was not intended to be a mandate that they either repair or close the facility. The library is not considered to be a critical facility, so it is not required to be compliant or to close.”

“After studying many of these recommendations and hearing from members of the public, I believe that we need to not balance the budget by closing Main Library. I believe that we need to find $1.8 million in some other fashion and keep Main Library open,” Lowenthal responded.

“So, I’d like to see us take this out of the budget discussion, and then following passing of the budget we would continue this conversation.”

And where might the city find $1.8 million? What about the boot?

“If we can find a way to, in our new budget, move over the parking services to Public Works and start putting those boots on,” Lowenthal said, “I think we have to be able to go from boots to books and be able to use that income to maintain our library services and continue this discussion” after the budget is passed. Others agreed.

“I think we need to look at some other alternatives which definitely should not include closing libraries,” Fourth District Councilman Patrick O’Donnell said at one point.

“ ‘Boots to books,’ that’s very good, Bonnie,” Gabelich said, questioning whether the city can really move fast enough to realize $1.8 million in savings this fiscal year by closing Main Library.

Opening a satellite library takes time, Gabelich said; it probably wouldn’t be “operational until June or July [2009]. At that point my question is, how realistic is it that we would realize that $1.8 million in the last 2-3 months of the fiscal year? If we can’t realize those savings, I think we should remove it from the constraint of the budget discussion and take it up at a later time.”

Council Chambers erupted in applause, which Mayor Bob Foster interrupted. “I would ask that you let people speak,” the mayor said.

“What is the breakdown of the anticipated $1.8 million in savings?” Gabelich asked City Manager Pat West.

“There would definitely be layoffs,” West said, noting that some library personnel could be shifted to branch libraries if the city expands branch library hours as planned. “That’s where the majority of savings would come from. We did not want to put any librarian’s job in the budget by looking at their jobs in the [newspaper] or until the city council is ready to do this. Right now we would definitely go back to [Director of Library Services] Eleanore Schmidt and work with her.”

“I just wanted to clarify that there are some other options, none of them very palatable,” Schmidt said, noting that other ways to find $1.8 million in savings without totally shuttering Main Library might include closing Main Library two days a week; closing a branch library; reducing budgets for other city services; furloughing Main Library over the Christmas holiday, or instituting rolling library closures citywide.

“They’re not palatable, but they’re a little easier to swallow,” Gabelich said. Others agreed.

“I guess the reason the community is concerned is what’s behind this,” Seventh District Councilwoman Tonia Reyes Uranga said of the city’s proposal to close Main Library. “It is an infrastructure issue, but it’s really hard to sell this idea when everything is a money issue. You’re just not giving me anything to sell this idea to the community with.”

“I think the biggest danger in this proposal is the process. Quite honestly, it stinks. I’ve had numerous calls and emails about it,” said Fifth District Councilwoman Gerrie Schipske. “By doing it this way, without specific plans … we’re losing the public trust on this issue.

“What I would really like to do is commend my colleague in the First District: if we give it to the public to do a library bond, a public safety bond, an infrastructure bond, I think we will find there is support for some and not all,” Schipske continued. “I would support a library bond, and I think we have a special election in January.”

Not everyone, however, supported keeping Main Library entirely open and intact.

“My big consideration is that we are not clear on the future of Civic Center. I look at Main Library as part of Civic Center. We have sort of pieced a civic center together, which doesn’t quite function as a civic center,” said Second District Councilwoman Suja Lowenthal, whose district includes Main Library.

“It seems irresponsible to continue to throw money at a dysfunctional building when we know the entire civic center will have to be re-envisioned and reconstructed in some way.

“I’m intrigued by Option 3, which is to reduce library operations by 11 percent to get to the $1.8 million in savings; temporarily to keep Main Library open, but to move forward immediately with plans to build a new Main Library,” Suja Lowenthal said. “Doing nothing is not an option, and I think when we advocate doing nothing, we will end up spending more money.”

“Could you get us the language in the proposed [$571 million infrastructure bond] parcel tax, which says there is $18 million earmarked for Main Library?” Schipske asked city staff.

“There’s nothing in the proposed ordinance. It’s just one of the eligible uses,” said Chief Assistant Attorney Heather Mahood.

“Perhaps what we could do for you is, if we’re not going to support the direction you’re going in, maybe we could provide a direction for you to look in,” suggested Third District Councilman Gary DeLong.

“What’s important is that as you do move forward, you’re bringing all the stakeholders to the table. I certainly won’t support closing any of the neighborhood libraries. I’d like to think that we think as one city.”

Not voicing their opinions on Main Library were Mayor Bob Foster; Sixth District Councilman Dee Andrews, and Vice Mayor Val Lerch.

The council–which saw representatives of the Long Beach Public Library Foundation unfurl their pro-library petition, now with more than 5,800 signatures–is expected to approve some version of the Fiscal Year 2008-2009 budget at its next meeting, Sept. 9.

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  • Cari Marshall
    I live in the 3rd District and work in the 1st. I’m also a co-founder of the Progressive Dinner Party, which raises money for Long Beach-based charities that impact low-income children and families. With the PDP, I have worked with families and organizations who consistently rely on the Main Library – whether the literacy programs that are based out of Main, or the resources available there, it is an irreplaceable institution for these families, and a branch library WOULD NOT suffice.

    After attending most of the city council's budget meetings – and listening to all of the lengthy public comment, including people from all over the city who use Main because they can’t find what they need at the branches, and reading Theo’s very thoughtful coverage of the issue in The District, my opinion is this building should be repaired, kept open, and remain a library. The city has let it fall into disrepair, and now some are trying to justify shutting it down and, presumably, tearing it down (we have to presume, since there is no plan). This building is architecturally notable; it should not be considered disposable! Just think if NYC had let its public library fall apart, then just tore it down! Long Beach has a history of razing buildings, only to put up worse ones (The Pike, CityPlace, etc. etc.). There is no study that says the Library's repairs must happen imminently, and I support Councilmember Bonnie Lowenthal’s idea to put a “library bond” before the voters. Come on Long Beach, show a little pride in your public institutions!

    City Councilmembers, please take Main out of this budget process and do your due diligence!!

    Cari Marshall
  • Theo Douglas
    DWR,
    Sometimes comments have trouble showing up immediately after you write them--it's just one of the mysteries of the Internet, which doesn't always work as smoothly as we'd like.
    You're not alone--it's happened to me, on this very site. I've actually lost whole pieces I was trying to post.
    Thanks for writing us, though, and thanks for your perseverance. I believe your comments should be visible by now.
  • An Open Letter to Ms. Schipske and Her Elected and Appointed Colleagues:

    Public trust must first be possessed before it can be lost.

    I would say that the overall trust factor for almost all facets of our local government is extremely low at the moment, and getting lower. Most of those you are hearing from (by various means) fit into two distinct categories:

    1: Those who are extremely annoyed at the way many of the current budget proposals (including that involving the main library) were developed and presented or,

    2: Those who are “not particularly surprised”.

    Those who are extremely annoyed are the ones whose opinions you (our local elected and appointed officials) have been damaging and eroding for some time now.

    You lost, quite possibly irretrievably, those who are “not particularly surprised” a long time ago.

    From deficits to infrastructure to the museum of art to polluted beaches to the breakwater to redevelopment to our public schools and more, the public’s capacity to trust that you (our local government) can efficiently and successfully manage their business has been slowly but inexorably dissolving for decades.

    Your public doesn’t feel included. Meetings intended to solicit public input are so poorly planned and run that time actually provided to the public is routinely and severely truncated. These meetings are, in fact, *our* meetings, yet we are routinely made to feel as though you entertain our comments only grudgingly.

    Your public doesn’t feel you are sufficiently honest with them. You routinely say that we ‘must’ do one thing or another to better manage our city, yet fail to fully explain to us why. When you do bother to explain, you routinely offer us insufficient facts so that we may best advise you of the direction we want you to take.

    Your public is fed up with financial ineptitude. We’re tired of hearing about budget deficits that could and should be better planned for and resolved but are not. Like almost all other budgets, our budget fails not because we don’t have enough revenue, but because we routinely spend more than we make. Our government was never intended to be all things to all people. There are some products, services and programs that you (as a government) have no business even offering, let alone providing. That you continue to try to provide these excesses costs us precious revenue that we then cannot apply to the things that should be clear priorities: sound infrastructure, quality education, superb public safety, a cleaner environment and a welcoming business climate.

    Your public is tired of the overall lack of accountability (i.e. consequences) for failure. When an appointed manager repeatedly fails to meet the goals and objectives you set for him/her, they must be dismissed and replaced with another who will meet them. When a publicly funded project repeatedly fails to meet the reasonable benchmarks for success that you set for it, you *must* de-fund that project.

    Your public desires that you maintain our infrastructure. When you build a library, you must maintain it. When you build roads and sidewalks, you must keep them…all of them…in a condition that is safe to use. When you build neighborhoods, you must pave the alleyways and you must assure that sufficient parking and ingress and egress exist to prevent related parking and traffic congestion.

    Your public desires that you keep the promises you make. When you use public funds to build an aquarium or a parking structure or to improve a museum and promise us that each will be able to re-pay their debts to us and operate self-sufficiently, you must do better at protecting our investments and become much more decisive in your actions in response to failures.

    In short, Ms. Schipske and colleagues, you need to govern more effectively. This does not mean becoming more adept at convincing us that what *you* desire to do is best for us. It means becoming more adept at subordinating yourselves, during your time in office, to those who are truly sovereign in this relationship: the People, as represented by a majority of the electorate.

    It means closing your mouths and opening your ears…and your minds…far more often than you do currently; to what your constituents are saying and what it is they want for their city.

    It means understanding, once clearly communicated, what your constituents truly want for their city that and then doing that and nothing else but that.

    Once you and your elected and appointed colleagues better understand these things, Ms. Schipske, and then begin to govern accordingly, then and only then will you begin to recover that public trust of which you speak.
  • DWR
    why won't my comments regarding this piece post? i've entered them twice...
  • DWR
    I've said if before and I'll say it again: The Main Library is simple being used as a convenient high-profile pawn in rallying public support for Foster's half-billion-plus-71-million infrastructure bond proposal/parcel tax. Until it is detailed how the hoped-for monies are to be apportioned (including allotments for resolving the decades-old parking shortage in districts 1,2,3 and restoring the remaining Los Cerritos Wetlands) I intend on voting a big fat "NO" to the bond proposal in November...
  • DWR
    I said it before and I'll say it again: The Main Library is simply being used as a convenient high-profile pawn in rallying public support for Foster's half-billion-plus-71-million dollar infrastructure
    bond proposal/parcel tax. Until it is detailed how that those hoped-for monies are to be apportioned (including allotments for resolving the decades-old parking shortage in districts 1,2 and 3, and preserving/restoring the remaining Los Cerritos Wetlands) I will be voting a big fat "NO" on the bond proposal in November.
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