We, The People, to Library Commissioners: Budget Restoration of Hours or Resign!

[Peacetown Jonathan]

Today's Press Democrat reported on Progressive Sebastopol's community action Wednesday evening demanding the restoration of library hours.
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20130905/articles/130909724?title=Library-board-pushed-to-expand-hours

Here is a three minute video of me delivering that message.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEndK5UAmM8&feature=c4-overview&list=UUxWLFMZhZQSasRoFGsxKTsg

I asked that the Commissioners either create a budget option in the coming fiscal year to restore library hours, or resign.

We, the People, who pay for our libraries and fund our County's $1.3 billion annual budget, need at least a plan that we can then lobby our County Supervisors to fund. Otherwise it is a Catch-22, leaving more than 100,000 regular library users suffering from this historically unprecedented, irresponsive, and irresponsible failure of Responsive Government.

Yes, the library budget is tight. And yes, the new Joint Powers Agreement will create a mechanism to restore hours WHEN it takes budgetary effect in perhaps TWO or THREE YEARS! But we have waited long enough, and it is unacceptable to me, and the thousands of County residents who have signed petitions to re-open the libraries, that our government is unwilling to provide interim financing to restore these hours in the coming year.

Here is a video of nearly a dozen other citizens who followed my, also demanding the restoration of hours


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlkthRqY7l0&feature=c4-overview&list=UUxWLFMZhZQSasRoFGsxKTsg

And here is the cover article in the Bohemian about the failure of the Library Commissioners and the unqillingness of our Supervisors to take responsibility for fixing this crisis
https://www.bohemian.com/northbay/longoverdue/Content?oid=2432713

As well as a column I wrote about the Supervisors and our County budget

https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20130612/opinion/130619853


We'll have another petition on this within a month or so...if anyone wants to assist with this campaign, please let me know. We can do it, but it's going to take public awareness, and pressure on our Supervisors, in the coming month.

[dzerach]

Such reasonable and fully persuasive presentations. Thank you, Jonathan. The gentleman who spoke of the library system as an institution that actively partners with the schools was spot-on.

And, look at this, what a coincidence! Another constructive voice.

"New San Diego Library To Open Debt Free"
By Lynn Blumenstein on September 6, 2013

https://lj.libraryjournal.com/2013/09/buildings/new-san-diego-library-to-open-debt-free/

San Diego -- once again instructive for compare and contrast. Published just yesterday in Library Journal, a highly readable, professional rag. Compliments Jonathan's and many others' long-suffering, hard work.

If "representational" government and elites themselves understood the value of supporting public libraries -- beyond an institution that provides vital computer access and involuntary, useless "social services" at the expense of others -- they wouldn't treat a highly flexible, tax-funded, potential-rife system this badly. The decision-making public library professionals of Sonoma County on payroll (not the staff!) are always responsible for this kind of problem, plain and simple, along with whoever hired them. Foremost a financial issue? How about a highly paid professional failure to directly show and tell -- to ingratiate with power-brokers and decision-makers. Real Librarians are not technocrats who hide out (that's staff hahaha) but are actively networking as visionaries. They are architects, builders and providers of researched services that are integral (just like police and fire -- yes, less appraisable, but no less substantial). People who have a specific, RELEVANT, dynamic, responsive library system in their midst know the value and work to protect it. From what I can see, Jonathan and all of those who are speaking out are not only working to restore hours but to keep a candle lit in the darkness, to keep the very memory of an evolving, open-ended tradition alive until tht day when a talented, dedicated, non-mercenary, "people-person" professional is (HOPEFULLY) found who excitedly takes on the highly rewarding challenge of restoring full library service to an able county with real needs as the next director/LEADER.

Library Journal is a forward-looking publication. It is one of the best ways that not only public librarians but also users can keep up with what is going on in the rest of the country, learning from others' expertise, trial and error, and innovative approaches to solving similar problems.

https://lj.libraryjournal.com/

The American Library Association's PLA is another, lesser so.
https://www.ala.org/pla/publications/publiclibraries

Reading for the Library Commission!: https://www.ala.org/advocacy/advleg/advocacyuniversity/toolkit/workingwithgovernmen/workingwithgovernment

https://www.ala.org/advocacy/advocacy-university

https://www.ala.org/advocacy/advocacy-university/value-libraries

https://www.ala.org/advocacy/declaration-right-libraries



Today's Press Democrat reported on Progressive Sebastopol's community action Wednesday evening demanding the restoration of library hours.
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20130905/articles/130909724?title=Library-board-pushed-to-expand-hours
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