Since the summer of 2011, hundreds of thousands of Sonoma County residents have been deprived of the use of our local libraries on Mondays and evenings, due to an ill-advised 25% cutback in hours countywide. Libraries feel over-crowded during the reduced hours they are open. The number of children participating in library programs has fallen by more than 12,000 a year.
Seniors, children, parents, and the needy are the hardest hit by this failure of government, for the first known time in our local library system’s 109-year history, to adequately fund this vital public resource. Yet the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors has refused to take responsibility for addressing this budgetary shortfall, and has no plan to restore library hours for the coming fiscal year.
We, the people, can change that, if we spread the word and let our elected representatives know that keeping libraries open is a top priority for us.
I just launched a new website at www.RestoreLibraryHours.org for a month long grassroots campaign (a volunteer project by Progressive Source Communications). Our objective is to build public awareness, and public pressure, on Sonoma County Supervisors to add $1.3 million to the budget during its annual deliberations in mid-June, and restore library hours across the county’s libraries starting July 1. Please join us in signing our petition by clicking here, and sharing this website with your friends and relatives.
If you prefer telephoning your County Supervisor directly to discuss funding to restore library hours this year, call 707-565-2241, and ask to speak to Susan Gorin (1st District), David Rabbitt (2nd District), Shirleee Zane (3rd), Mike McGuire (4th) or Efren Carrillo (5th). They can also be emailed individually from the Supervisors web page here.
Please report back to this email string here on Wacco any response the supervisors give about whether or not they intend to vote to restore library hours this year.
The library system's $1.3 million shortfall represents just one-tenth of one percent of our County’s $1.3 billion budget. During this library funding "crisis" period, the Board of Supervisors has approved numerous expenditures that serve fewer citizens, are less popular, and less urgent.
For example, during last June’s budget deliberations, our Supervisors voted to add $8 million to the County's $80 million road maintenance budget. And since 2006, it has also added millions more per year to fund an unpopular 250% increase in County marijuana busts, prosecutions, and incarcerations.
If citizens were to vote on whether our tax dollars should go to re-opening our closed libraries or more pot busts, a wide majority of us would vote for libraries. Responsive Government means that we need our Supervisors to represent tax-payers in how our tax dollars are spent. We need an accountability moment during June's budget deliberations, and to remind them that refusing to vote to fund the re-opening of libraries is a vote against libraries, and the many thousands of citizens who use them.
Sonoma County is relatively wealthy, and our government has sufficient taxpayer resources to fund the restoration of library hours for the coming year—provided that our Board of Supervisors responds to this urgent public need.
If you would like to volunteer to assist with marketing this Campaign, or donate to its small advertising budget, please email info at ProgressiveSource dot com.
