Public Deserves Appointments on Library Board

Last week, when the PPL's strategic planning consultant asked me what I thought of library service at my ward's Fox Point branch, my instinct was to repeat the PPL's slogan: "I love my neighborhood library."

Incessant advertising might've first driven that mantra into my head, but my assertion was heartfelt.

When asked what I'd change about services at Fox Point, my answer was "not much." More hours would be great, but the environment and location are perfect: The library is in the Boys and Girls Club building, downstairs from the Senior Center, across the street from the Fox Point Manor, and a block from Vartan Gregorian Elementary.

I do my best to stop by every few weeks, mostly to use the computers and gossip with my librarian-friends, Anne, Alex, and Sandy. (I'm proud to say that the three of them provided a lot of the energy behind the PPL's successful unionizing effort over the summer.)

I think that my warm feelings are shared by most patrons of the Fox Point branch; it is, after all, the most frequented of the PPL's six satellite branches.

But earlier this month, with no notice to the neighborhood, the PPL's board of directors decided to go month-to-month on their lease with the Boys and Girls Club upon its expiration in February, citing mold problems. (The Boys and Girls Club is working to fix its roof, and I've made it clear that, if needed, there IS City money available for mold remediation.) The administrators who failed to give that notice have since apologized, and seem genuinely contrite. But the episode underscores why the City Council and many community members believe the City needs real representation on the PPL's board and a stronger say in its decision-making processes.

During the fall, I introduced an ordinance, co-sponsored by City Councilmembers Miguel Luna and Rita Williams, that would require the PPL to include several municipal appointments on its board in exchange for continued City funding. The PPL has been resistant, going so far as to claim that it would refuse future City funding -- and the $1.5 million State match for it -- were the ordinance to pass. Some affiliated with the PPL's leadership have even cynically asserted that the City's aim in trying to democratize the board is to get its hands on the PPL's endowment.

The Council's aim, however, is simply to ensure that the PPL functions in the way that's most beneficial to the people of Providence, and that most- appropriately spends their money. That many library patrons have questioned the wisdom of several recent PPL actions justifies this concern. For instance:

• We've seen regular double-digit percent raises in administrative salaries, while wages for the rank-and-file have remained stangant. In some years, more has been spent on the salaries of the five highest-paid administrators, who all make six-figures, than on new books.
• When it became clear that employees were poised to vote to form a union, the cash-strapped PPL found money to hire an expensive Boston consultant in an attempt to foil that effort.
• While investing in expensive rehabs and additions at two branches, the PPL did little to respond to the well-known infrastructural problems at the Washington Park branch, leading to its (hopefully temporary) closure this month.
• Employees have been laid-off, hours cut, and branch closures threatened.

The proposal that's currently before the City Council would let the Council make additional appointments to the PPL's strategic planning group, and require that entity to research alternative library governance models before it makes its report in April. It would also require the PPL to accept eight non-voting public board appointments on July 1 of this year, four made by the Mayor and four by the Council, in exchange for continued City funding. As of January 1, 2007 those public members would receive full voting rights.

Councilmembers are pushing these measures precisely because "we love our neighborhood libraries," And if the library regains our confidence in its capacity to spend public funds, the public will be even more forthcoming with those funds--and love--for their libraries.

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