Archive for May, 2010

The People of Boston Branches (PBB), a recently formed library advocacy organization for all the branches, is embarking on a story campaign to convince our elected city and state officials to keep libraries open and funded. Below is their request. Their email is peopleofboston@gmail.com.  They also have a web site. The person in charge is Brandon Abbs.

We Need Your Story

We are putting together a campaign: 100 reasons Not to Cut the Boston Public Library.  It will include stories from all of the library stakeholders, including the patrons.  If you have a reason that you need the library to stay at full service, please e-mail it to me.  To help with distribution something 250 words or less would be idea.  Remember, there is a big weeding campaign going on now to reduce inventory, we’re losing microtext, we’re losing the newspaper room, your librarian could be moved to another branch, we’re losing book delivery service, and we’re losing cleaning services.  How will these losses impact your lives?

We are also coordinating writing campaigns.  Organize a quick 10-minute letter writing session at a community group meeting, book club meeting, tot lot play date or after school group.  If you need postcards that are ready to go, let us know — we can get them to you and coordinate picking them back up.

What we would like to do is deliver them in person with our delegations — if you’d like to be a part of the delegation (Dates TBD, but after June 3) let us know!

Last week’s Annual Meeting of the BPL trustees was a quiet one, at least compared to the raucous three previous hearings when proposed closings of a third of Boston’s local branches, and layoffs of more than a hundred library employees, became the focus of heated testimonials by library advocates and their city and state representatives.  This time, as before the upheaval started,  the usual thirty or so mayoral and BPL executives were on hand to applaud presentations by their colleagues,  nod in agreement with proposed BPL initiatives, and laugh at the boisterous jocularity of trustee chair Jeffrey Rudman and his perennial search for a good home-cooked meal.

Also filling seats of several Rabb Auditorium back rows were a few dozen library advocates, eyes newly opened to the importance of  keeping watch over BPL trustees who, as recent history made shockingly clear, actually could be so daft as to try  and close their beloved local libraries. And herein lies the glorious difference with the way things were as little as three months ago: a sea change has taken place among Boston residents, media and the political establishment, suddenly aware of the critical importance voters attach to the libraries in their neighborhoods, an awareness accompanied by the uneasiest of feelings among library users that the BPL and its current leadership do not necessarily have their best interests at heart.

The question of who might stand up for them has already been answered by the unprecedented involvement of Boston’s state delegation in the local matter of branch closings, as well as the outspoken opposition by a majority of city councillors who have objected to the plans by BPL president Amy Ryan to “transform” the BPL by shrinking it. The confusion surrounding BPL’s stated reasons for shuttering branches and forcing layoffs, moreover, which ricocheted from “we can’t afford 26 branches because the state cut our funding” to “even if we had the funding we would close libraries,” likely has damaged the trustees’ credibility. It also may have eroded support for BPL leadership by president Amy Ryan among library supporters and their elected representatives, as a cursory look at months of voluminous commentary on library coverage in the on-line press indicates. Add to that the lack of  advance political outreach to city or state delegates about a contemplated library transformation, and it is no longer hard to see that the BPL’s actions may have disturbed as well the delicate balance of presumed public trust bestowed on those holding appointed office (as is the case for the trustees who are mayoral selections) in favor of elected office holders, many of whom face voters this year.

Trustees were forced to acknowledge as much at their  May 11 Annual Meeting when the city’s intergovernmental liaison to the state, Keith Mahoney, described the effect of the adoption of an amendment sponsored by Boston state delegates to deny the BPL more than $3 million state dollars if it proceeds with library closings and layoffs, as well as the attempt by Rep. Angelo M. Scaccia to pass an amendment to undo such a move, which failed. Rep. Scaccia was a successful fundraiser for the BPL as a trustee until 2008, when he resigned in protest of the ousting of former  BPL president Bernard Margolis. More stinging was the reported decision by Senate president Therese Murray not to meet with the trustees until “after the budget is passed.” This time, sounds of protest by trustee Paul La Camera about the “very constitutionality”  and “troubling precedent” of the state inserting itself in “sovereignty” of city matters were somewhat muted compared to his loud denunciations of state and city representatives at an earlier trustees meeting, when he excoriated them for not being in attendance when trustees had to cast the vote on library closings. “I don’t want to further complicate matters for you,” La Camera told Mahoney, somewhat ruefully. Just for good measure, the trustees passed a resolution opposing any conditional state amendments to restrict library funding.

A new library trustee joined the group, Carol Fulp, leaving just one vacant position on the nine-member board. Another seat remains occupied by Ms. Berthe Gaines, who is too frail to attend and therefore can’t vote. Ms. Fulp’s appointment, and her connection to Governor Deval Patrick, may have raised hope among the BPL directorate that she will influence the governor to veto any state budget amendment that would punish the city financially for library closings, in which case a two-third vote would be required for an override.  In addition to the election of Ms. Fulp, the board re-elected its chair, Jeff Rudman, for another term. The next face-off over the library budget will take place on Thursday, June 3rd, at 6:00 PM, when the City Council will hear testimony by the BPL’s executives seeking support for the closings and layoffs, and their opponents, who are expected to make it a very long night.

The short answer is, No. The longer answer is, Very Circuitously. If you like the mayor (whoever he/she is) and are in full support of him/her, and respect his/her judgment in the intellectual and cultural life of this city, and can vouch for his/her passion and support for libraries, you would fully endorse the current system of governance of the BPL. That is because the current mayor appoints all nine trustees, and does not have to worry about qualifications of a trustee of what is held to be one of the most prestigious public library systems in the country. Nor does the mayor have to submit their appointments for consultation or confirmation to either an elected body, such as the city council, or a group of library professionals. That is the Very Circuitous answer to the question of how well the BPL trustees represent Bostonians interests.

The No answer goes likes this: the BPL trustees, because their only loyalty is to the mayor who appoints them, only represent the mayor’s interests. Not yours, not mine. Only the mayor’s. That explains, for example, why during each of the two most recent budget cycles, none of the trustees protested the severe budget cuts proposed by the mayor and his budget chief, Lisa Signori. The mayor said, Cut. The trustees cut.

This is also why the trustees unanimously agreed to close the Kirstein branch last summer, even though no debate about whether to close took place before they were asked to vote on the closing, either among the trustees, or the library users in Boston. Moving the Kirstein collection to the Copley Library allowed the BPL to benefit from the $7 million Kirstein trust that had maintained the collection at the Kirstein Library in the financial district, offsetting the city’s cost for the BPL by the same amount. When the Kirstein building is sold, moreover, its proceeds will go into city coffers, not the BPL’s, further impoverishing an already struggling library system and enriching the city’s capital inventory. The closing was a unilateral decision by the mayor who appointed the trustees. He said, Cut, and the trustees cut.

It explains why the trustees voted unanimously to take $20,000 from the BPL Foundation last year to pay for a supplemental housing allowance for president Amy Ryan, an operational expense that should have come out of the city’s operational budget and not out of a foundation meant to benefit the library and its programs. When I asked trustee chair Jeff Rudman during a phone conversation why the money was not taken from the city’s operational budget, he said there was a “municipal cap” on pay and benefits for city employees. Again, the mayor needed a fix for this cap, and the trustees provided it, impoverishing the BPL’s foundation and beneficiaries, but helping the mayor’s budget.

In better-governed cities and towns, library trustee appointments are a shared political effort that involves the mayor, the council, selectmen and/or county commissioners. An excellent example of  such enlightened representative library governance can be found in the Minneapolis/Hennepin County’s library system, where current BPL president Ryan hails from. Their 11-member library board of trustees is appointed by the county commissioners (which in Boston would be equivalent to the elected city council), with input from the Minneapolis City Council and its mayor. Because this library system joins an urban to a county system, three seats on the board of trustees are reserved for Minneapolis residents.

Compare this to the Boston Public Library’s system of governance: of the nine-member board of trustees, two seats have been vacant for two years, specifically since library advocates and active fundraisers William Bulger and Angelo DiScaccia resigned in 2008, protesting the firing of Bernard Margolis, the previous BPL president. A third seat has been held by a distinguished library advocate who fought library closings decades ago, Berthe M. Gaines, but is too frail to show up at most trustees meetings and therefore can’t cast a vote. BPL trustees try to have her tune in via a conference call but BPL technology seems to date from the 19th century and, beyond crackling phone lines and cries of “I can’t hear you”  little communication ensues. That leaves six mayoral advocates representing the BPL and it 26 neighborhood libraries, and all they have to do is please the mayor and his budget chief, Lisa Signori.

Is this great governance, or what?