Letters: Library parcel taxes work

Measure Q is being promoted by an organized group of well meaning, but misguided residents, known as "The Friends of the Library," city staff members and retirees with vested interests in preserving their generous salaries and big pensions. They should be putting put all this effort into volunteering at the library instead of writing letters, pushing lawn signs, and taxes on others.

Measure Q is simply designed to increase the library hours and city payroll. The PG library will not be closed. PG has the money to keep it open four days a week. This is what the supporters of the PG Library Parcel Tax don't mention. Yes, Measure Q is designed to increase the hours and city payroll. There is no need for a new tax if you can use it four days a week instead of seven.

In the last few years PG voters have approved a new School tax and a sales tax increase that was supposed to help the library. What happenened?

Now, we are asked for another new library tax. Maybe next year they will ask for a special police tax, fire tax, or a road repair tax. When does the city council learn to balance the budget a buy reducing high salaries and big pensions? Can you retire at age 55 with most of your pay for life?

This is not about closing the library, but about expanding the hours from 24 to 60 per week. Please learn to work with the schedule and we will not need a new tax. No one will stop parents from taking their children to the library on the days it is open. We don't need an expansion while the city is ringing up more debt in raises and big pensions. Consider Voting No on Q.

It is a widespread tragedy at public libraries around the country that poor management practices and emotional pleas are repeatedly employed to avoid facing the realities we all must face in our personal finances. Confusing a love of books with giving public library systems whatever funding they ask for is akin to serially spoiling a child and then wondering why that child turns out to be an inconsiderate, self-centered adult.

Do librarians who earn masters degrees in library science learn about how to manage, or is it just about building collections, cataloging, circulation and how to gain more public money for whatever folly the 'experts' deem appropriate?

The Pacific Grove library has not done the appropriate due diligence of analytically and impartially studying viable alternatives, which may include closing it down altogether, paying Monterey for the privilege of using its library or bringing in an outside library operating company to perform an analysis since the incumbents have such rigid biases against change.

Should Monterey county have multiple library fiefdoms because the librarians are too busy protecting their turf rather than economically serving the public? Apparently the answer is a resounding 'yes' given their total inertia at coming up with a better operating model, despite the desperate economic circumstances in just about every California community. The same goes for cities, school districts, waste management districts, air pollution control district and all the other duplicative service entities that have gradually built up through the decades...all costing the public far more than they should because of the overlapping, inefficient organization structure.

The City of Pacific Grove is broke and has a defiant, discouraging and obstacle-laden process toward new and existing businesses. No amount of tax increases will bring it back to viability given its overwhelming public employee pension and benefit liabilities. Why wouldn't it be appropriate to actually fix the broken sewer system, streets, sidewalks and other infrastructure before handing over more money to the library? Hard choices have not been made by multiple city regimes and the public should not be made to suffer because management doesn't earn their salaries by pursuing prudent public policy.

Giving more money to a city that can't prudently spend what it has is akin to giving an alcoholic another drink or a drug addict another dose of heroin. We in the real-world, small-scale private sector have had to make do with less...no bailouts, no subsidies, no loan guarantees. In the current economic environment, government agencies still don't want to follow the same rules as the rest of us.

Pacific Grove voters need to send a clear signal that the library is not exempt from sound operating practices.

Libraries will be like museums, to store old books. Hasn't anyone ever heard of e-books?? Kindle?? Nook? iPad??
What about music CD's and movie DVD's loaned out by libraries you say?? These will go the way of the VHS move. Music is already downloaded off of the internet, movies are streamed through the internet.

Let's put this 100-year dinosaur to rest !! NO ON MEASURE Q !!