Publication Date: Wednesday, July 28, 2004
LIBRARIES
Please council, can we have some more?
Please council, can we have some more?
(July 28, 2004) Library advocates says thanks for more funds for downtown branch, but ...
by Bill D'Agostino
How do you get money from the Palo Alto City Council?
Do you join an official advisory commission, work months crafting detailed reports and then carefully present your recommendations? Or do you, as a regular citizen, write a strongly worded letter to the council and gather irate neighbors for a public meeting at the last minute?
After years of trying to call attention to the city's libraries' chronic financial shortfalls -- such as overworked librarians and small buildings -- Palo Alto's Library Advisory commissioners are realizing the latter strategy is generally more successful.
"I'm seeing there is a way to get money from the council, but I think it's a very dysfunctional way," Commission Paula Skokowski said during the commission's monthly meeting last week.
When the City Council approved its budget last month, fuming residents wrestled $35,000 from the City Council to reopen the Downtown Library branch on Saturdays. The library lost weekend hours budget cuts in 2003.
Commissioners begrudgingly recommended using those dollars for that purpose last week, despite feeling there are bigger, more important library issues that lack money.
"What is the point of having a library commission who gives input to the council?" Skokowski asked. "The council ... waited until the budget meeting for a group of citizens to mobilize themselves on one hot topic. ... And you know what? It may not be the top priority, but we'll take the money."
Other commissioners laughed. "I'm serious!" Skokowski added. "I'm not going to say, 'No, I don't want Downtown open on Saturdays.' I'll take anything, but it's dysfunctional."
Before the meeting, Library Director Paula Simpson questioned the rationale of using scarce funds only for downtown's branch. It's the least used library, and is only 1.5 miles from the Main Library and 1.2 miles from the Children's Library, Simpson noted in a letter to the commission. Both of those other libraries are currently open on weekends.
"I think we're doing a disservice to the community because we're not looking at the big picture and we're not looking long term," Simpson said before the meeting.
Other priorities the commission and the library director would like to see funded include purchasing an air conditioner for the Main Library, bringing the collection up-to-date, creating new youth programs, and building quiet study areas.
"Our library system is undernourished with not enough money to feed it properly," Commissioner Tom Wyman said. The library's budget for 2004-2005 is $5.2 million.
Councilwoman Hillary Freeman, the council's liaison to the committee, defended the City Council's process, saying elected officials can't always listen to the commission's recommendations since several city priorities have to be balanced.
"What you have to understand is that we also are looking at potholes, we're also looking at storm drains," Freeman said. "We are not just looking at the libraries."
"You're not looking at the libraries at all," Skokowski shot back.
Last year, the Library Advisory Commission spent months working on a long-term plan to properly support and modernize Palo Alto's libraries. But one recommendation -- to close the Downtown Library branch -- stole all of the attention.
"That was a minor part of the proposal," Commission chair Lenore Jones said. "We're asking for somebody on the council to look at the whole budget and say 'You guys have been under-funded, under-staffed and under-facilitated for years.' Instead, what we're getting is OK, you can have five more hours at Downtown."
In 2002, a consultant found that the city's librarians were critically overworked. "The library is barely keeping the doors open to the public," the consultant wrote. As a result, tasks like shelving materials, training and evaluating employees, answering phones, maintaining safe buildings and keeping the libraries organized were left behind.
This year's budget pays for approximately the same number of library employees as in 2002.
"We clearly need more staff," Simpson said.
Staff writer Bill D'Agostino can be e-mailed at bdagostino@paweekly.com
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