According to the Merc, public library commissioner Diane Davis is getting out of Dodge, or at least Milpitas, to register her displeasure with her city council’s failure to support a measure in last month’s special election that would have increased funding for her city library as well as libraries throughout Silicon Valley.
The article suggests that Milpitas voters were crucial to the measure’s failure.
The plot thickens, because Milpitas politicos such as Debbie Giordano (endorsed for reelection by the Merc last October) insist that really, deep down, they love libraries (I bet she would even let her daughter marry one). In 2008, go the plans, Milpitas will open a new library, which will be independent from the county system.
But it’s 2005, and Milpitas doesn’t have that new community library yet. If Milpitas pols couldn’t support Measure A, which would have cost home owners $12 a year, the equivalent of three lattes a household, where are they going to be when they bravely break away from the system and fund their own library? I know where they’re going, because I’ve been there, as a director of a library funded by its own city. Yes, there are many examples of successful local libraries. But then there are cities that prove themselves too freakin’ cheap to provide library services at a level you’d expect, given local salaries and home costs.
Good for Diane Davis. I’m going to watch where she moves–it will be a harbinger of good things to come for that city.
Posted on this day, other years:
Open Stacks #12
Now presenting: Open Stacks #12 Also available via the podcast feed. A mere 12+ minutes this time. I must have been in a hurry. This week, I talk a bit about productivity and the pursuit of improving my own. For…