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

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Lindaonline 3 months ago 1 point
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The community may feel better about the thought of closing the Main Library if only there was already a plan in place for its replacement. As always…. city hall backwards.

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Joe Weinstein 3 months ago 1 point
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Yes, as Lindaonline notes, City Hall continues its 'shoot first ask after' approach to 'planning' . Its folk make super-professional salaries for non- (or even anti-) professional approaches to their work. If the City Council had a clue, they would fire Pat West for permitting this sort of sleaze anti-planning so-called 'budgeting'.

Apparently the District's reporter now believes that Foster's bond proposal (whatever and wherever it actually and specifically is at the moment) actually earmarks money for a new main library. Maybe not enough money, but that's missing the real irony.

Namely, there's no legally guaranteed connection between Foster's bonds and the proposed parcel tax. The actual legal lingo of the parcel tax proposal merely restricts the tax money to certain broad kinds of uses labeled 'infrastructure', but contains no commitment to use the money for any specific projects or in any specific amounts or mechanism, let alone to repay bonds, or indeed to finance Foster's bond proposal or his projects.

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http://www.joeweinstein.info

Bill Cwiklo 3 months ago 1 point
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Notice that the current site of the main library is not on the list of potential sites for a "new" library. Grant Thornton hit the nail on the head when he said that getting rid of the main library is part of a grandious Foster/Knabe scheme to redevelop out historic 6 block civic center as commercial property by a public/private partnership. Too bad that Bob Foster didn't internalize much from the ancient Romans that he claims to admire so much. They enhanced their great city, yes, but their historic forum, the Fora Romano, is still standing. He wants to tear ours down!

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