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Editorial: Palo Altans love libraries, but not enoughM1/2

Last week's failure of the $49.1 million library bond measure in Palo Alto marks the fourth defeat of a significant city initiative in the past four years.

The defeat was not a surprise to many in the community, including some strong supporters of the measure to fund expansion and renovation of the historic Children's Library and a major rebuilding of the Mitchell Park branch library and community center buildings into one new structure.

But the loss has left many civic leaders shaken and unsure how to rebuild the confidence of the community, as explored this week in the Weekly's cover story, "The city that can't?"

Earlier defeats include the rejection of the city's infamous historic-preservation ordinance, the defeat of the storm-drains fee plan by property owners and the rebuff of the Measure J government-streamlining plan by voters in 2000.

The disappointment and anger will result in finger-pointing and recriminations in coming weeks, but those will do no good for anyone. There will be much theorizing about what went wrong, and multiple perspectives on why the city seems to be floundering and unable to mount a successful effort on any front.

Many will blame the "Palo Alto process," but in many ways this bond measure was the result of an end-run around the normal process. While City Manager Frank Benest was building community support for working on rebuilding basic city infrastructure in a "CityWorks" program, libraries were left out.

Failing to get funds included for significant library improvements, the "Libraries Now!" group formed. With the support of Councilwoman Nancy Lytle, the group got the libraries issue put to the head of the civic-expenditures line.

But city confusion and dissension relating to its six libraries goes back into the late 1980s, when there was a surge in library usage spurred in part by a new computerized catalogue. In 1994, the Friends of the Library began pushing hard for the creation of a city Library Commission.

That proposal was opposed by former City Manager June Fleming, and it took until 1998 for the City Council to form such a group.

There was also an internal staff disagreement over whether to go for a single large library and eliminate three branches (favored by Fleming) or keep and eventually upgrade all branches (favored by library staff and several hundred residents who participated in focus groups). In 1999, an innovative proposal to create a joint city/school library at Gunn High School fell victim to the behind-the-scenes struggle within the staff.

And in 2000 the new Library Commission, after two years of study, issued its plan to overcome years of neglect of the city's libraries -- a plan that later translated into more than $100 million in improvements.

Faced with survey results that showed that was an unreachable goal, the council set aside ambitious plans to rebuild the main library and came up with the final $49.1 million proposal.

Yet something was amiss. As early as last May, the Weekly editorialized that continued dissension over including $5 million in Art Center improvements would likely kill the bond measure. In June, a prescient third survey showed a bond measure falling short despite two earlier surveys showing it being dead-on the two-thirds-approval mark.

A glow of unanimity suffused the council in late June when it agreed 8-0 on a scaled back plan, and a campaign group dubbed "Libraries Plus!" was formed to organize the campaign. But within three weeks even that unanimity fell apart over what we termed at the time a "needless flurry" over whether tennis courts at Mitchell Park should be relocated -- as planned after many hours of citizen and professional architect consideration.

The resulting 5-4 split vote on the issue we think undermined both enthusiasm and support for the bond measure at a critical juncture. The fatal blow came with the emergence of a small but vocal anti-tax opposition group, as any opposition is often deadly to getting a two-thirds vote on anything.

The economy certainly played a hand in the defeat, along with other possible factors -- among them an awareness that other things needing money are waiting in the wings: including rebuilding city athletic fields and storm drains. It's too soon to assess whether the perennial north-south question in Palo Alto came into play in this vote.

But at the core of it all, the continuing division on the council, reflected in part in the Mitchell Park tennis-court vote, needs to be healed before citizens are likely to once again be willing to support new initiatives.