BooneCountyGirl
skyler the weird
Rick Barton
Joe
Wiley Coyote
Trinkets Trump Libraries
Words have meaning, especially when you’re talking about libraries. So how about rewording an uptown paper of record poll, posted in response to news that the county is closing 12 libraries and cutting 148 jobs because of budget cuts.
The poll predictably asks: Would you be willing to pay higher taxes to keep libraries open?
Let’s change that to: Would you be willing to swap a multi-million-dollar Whitewater center and an uptown baseball stadium for 12 libraries?
Similarly, let’s change the oft-repeated lament that “the county doesn’t have enough money to keep the libraries open” to “the county, under the leadership of a Democrat-controlled board of commissioners, chose to spend millions on trinkets instead of libraries.”
It’s shameful that it’s come to this, largely because it was completely avoidable. In targeted cases, though, the closures of some libraries seem justified, perhaps even overdue. The Carmel branch that will be closing, for example, is literally right down the street from the South County Regional branch; ditto the Independence branch set to close and its distance from the Matthews branch. The Cornelius branch being shuttered is smack between the North County Regional and Davidson branches. The CheckIt Outlet, which is slated to close, practically overlaps the Main branch and ImaginOn on a map. And both of those facilities are a short drive from the Belmont branch that is closing.
Speaking of duplicative services, the library system has for a few years now been using automated checkout machines at several branches. Did the libraries where they’re being used experience any reduction in force when the machines came online, or was that factored into any of the jobs lost to budget cuts?
Maybe our $170,000-a-year library chief, Charles Brown, has an answer.
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Mark, I’m going to post an email my wife sent me the other day after reading Jeff Taylor’s take on this issue. She worked at ImaginOn for about a year and a half on a part-time basis, but left about a year ago after having saved enough to pay off the balance of her student loans:
“If only people knew about the grotesque, obscene waste going on at ImaginOn…
Still, I bet they’ll try their best to make sure ImaginOn is the last thing to go, since they’re so proud of it – despite the fact that it’s almost undoubtedly the biggest money-waster in PLCMC.
The people who work there are nice people who I wish no ill, but it’s about time they moved into some job where they actually have to work, instead of just sit in comfortable chairs snacking, chatting, and having parties all day, every day.
I’m glad Harry Jones is forcing them to make budget cuts, but if only they had lived within their means in the first place, this wouldn’t be so painful. They’re this devastated just because people are buying less stuff so there’s less SALES tax revenue? Come ON! Why were they making expenditures based on something that obviously goes up and down? Plus, the fact that they added extra sales tax proves that they knew way ahead of time that sales tax wasn’t sufficient but they were trying to get out of making budget cuts. I hate them I hate them I hate them I hate them for stealing money in taxes and wasting wasting wasting it and stealing more and more and more.
And the thing about expecting property values to rise 100% in 12 years? That’s really bad, but the worst part of all is seeing the wastage up close and personal like in my library job, knowing the same hideous, grotesque, obscene laziness and waste and overspending is being duplicated in every department of county gov’t at every level, from the directors right down to the lowliest schlubs. How UNNECESSARY it all is…
And this coincidentally ties right in with what I was just reading in Henry Hazlitt’s “Economics in One Lesson.” He’s talking about make-work schemes. I HATE that &%$*!
-Kristina”
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Message:
Char-Meck public library chieftain Charlie Brown’s threat to close 12
branches and lay off 148 workers is such a transparent farce that it
would not fool Snoopy. Brown’s “plan” is simply a scare tactic devised
to stir up support and so bring pressure on Harry Jones and the Board
of Commissioners to give PLCMC all the money it ‘needs’. Adding to the
hand wringing, Brownie and the other bigwigs in Bookville have even
set up a system where folks can chip in their own pocket money to save
the sinking USS PLCMC. No one will be laid off, no branches will close
before this comic strip of ‘woe is me’ is over.
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Because I am a) tired of being asked b) a complete bastard, and went ahead and figured out exactly how you could come up with the $2m. needed to keep the libraries open!
Funny, does not seem to be catching on.
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