If you were one of the people who showed up at the Park Ridge Library this past Sunday looking to check out a book, read a magazine, surf the Net, or just hang out, you probably were disappointed to discover that you happened to pick the first of what is scheduled to be 14 consecutive Sundays that the Library will be closed this summer.

The official party line on the closings is that the Library doesn’t have the $20,000 it would cost to keep it open those 14 Sundays.

That’s an outright lie.

The truth is that keeping the Library open those 14 summer Sundays just isn’t a priority for the Library’s executive staff who recommended its closing, or for 6 of the 9 Library Board members (pres. Margaret Harrison, vice-pres. John Benka, secretary Audra Ebling, treasurer John Schmidt, trustees Dorothy Hynous and Jerry White) who voted to approve that recommendation.

Or you might say that it just isn’t as much of a priority as giving the Library’s employees $20,000+ of raises.

Or as much of a priority as continuing the free use of the Library’s computers instead of charging a nominal $1 per log-on.

Or as much of a priority as continuing the Library’s free programs and movies instead of charging a nominal $1 per attendance.

In fact, based on the Library’s own computer usage statistics, a $1 computer log-on fee could have generated over $60,000 – enough money to keep the Library open all 14 Sundays this summer AND next, while also giving the Library employees their raises.

And, based on the Library’s own program attendance stats, a $1 attendance fee per program or movie could have generated $30,000 – enough to keep the Library open all 14 of this summer’s Sundays and also cover 1/2 of the employee raises.

Even if computer usage would decline by 50% in response to a $1 fee (as all those financial geniuses chose to spend $1-plus on the gas for their round-trip to the Niles or Des Plaines libraries for free computer usage), summer Sundays could still be saved…and with an additional $10,000 to put toward raises or other uses.

But user fees are anathema to senior Library staff and this Board majority. And keeping the Library open Sundays this summer wasn’t a priority for them.

Actually, closing it was.

That’s because the Library’s senior staff and the Board majority wanted a very visible symbol of the Library’s financial situation to anger the taxpayers enough that they would demand that the City Council give the Library more tax money.  But after failing in that effort and now facing a Library tax increase referendum this November, the staff and Board majority will use the Sunday closings to try to sell a “yes” vote to those same taxpayers.

Interestingly enough, although that senior staff and Board majority wanted a visible symbol to motivate the taxpayers, they didn’t want to cause the Library’s core weekday user base – e.g., kids, seniors, the voluntarily and involuntarily unemployed – any inconvenience.

So summer Sunday users – the largest group, on a per-hour basis, of Library users (according to the Library’s own, albeit very flawed, data) – became expendable.  Or “acceptable collateral damage” in military parlance.

Ironically, a half-baked “Survey-Monkey” survey commissioned by the Library’s senior staff and Board, with the wink-and-nod expectation that it would reveal overwhelming opposition to any kind of Library fees, actually showed just the opposite.

As reported in a recent article in the Park Ridge Herald-Advocate (“Survey: Most Park Ridge library users would pay for adult programs,” May 20, 2014), 62.8% of the survey’s 530 respondents to questions about “adult” programs said they would be willing to pay a fee to attend programs at the Library. And of the $1-$3-$5-other price range surveyed, 41.9% indicated they would be willing to pay $5 for computer classes!

Even the majority (54.5%) of the 244 respondents who said “no” to a question about paying for children’s programs was not the resounding mandate the senior staff and Board majority seemed to be hoping for, with a number of those folks indicating they’d pay a $3 program fee if it were charged.

The senior staff’s and Board majority’s response to such “Survey Monkey”-shines?

“We need to do our homework and due diligence on this, because if the referendum gets shot down, we need to come out of the gate with an alternative money source,” said Library Resources Committee chair Jerry White.

In other word: Let’s not try to salvage some of this summer’s Sundays by starting to charge user fees now when, instead, we can keep the Library closed and hope it ticks off enough voters that they pass the referendum in November, so we won’t have to start charging the user fees we really don’t want to charge.

To the people in charge of the Library, closing the Library to the entire community one day a week for 14 weeks is better than deferring $20,000 of raises for less than 50 employees.

And closing the Library to the entire community for 14 summer Sundays is better than charging computer users and program attendees a nominal $1 user fee.

Those are the priorities of this senior Library staff and this 6-person Library Board majority.

And all you Sunday Library users aren’t.

Robert J. Trizna

Editor and publisher

Member, Park Ridge Library Board

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