Magness Quits Library Commission : Claims Top Officials Would Not Provide Vital Information

Robert Magness, an outspoken supporter of building a new central library at the old Sears store site in Hillcrest, resigned from the San Diego Library Commission on Thursday, claiming that top library officials and others had sealed him off from vital information.

But both the city’s top librarian and the chairwoman of an advisory committee, which is evaluating various locations for a new central library, say they haven’t withheld anything of importance from Magness, who city library director William Sannwald said is obsessed with detail.

“I’ve had growing concerns about the failure of the library department to give full disclosure of information to the library commission,” Magness, a 68-year-old retired businessman, said. “I think there’s been a failure of the library to fully disclose . . . and notify the commission on pertinent matters.”

Magness, an active library proponent for 10 years and a library commissioner for the last two, said two recent incidents led him to resign.

First, “despite the best efforts of the commission,” the library department failed to tell the commission about the City Council’s Tuesday hearing on the library’s budget for next year, he said.

As a result, Magness claimed, the commission was forced into a last-minute scramble, leading to a presentation before the City Council to ask for funding for more books and materials, a storefront library branch at Scripps Ranch and expansion of a branch library in Rancho Penasquitos.

“We weren’t even notified that hearings on the budget were even going to be held,” according to Magness.

Second, Magness said, an advisory committee set up by acting Mayor Ed Struiksma and the rest of the City Council in February to evaluate prospective sites for a new central library has kept secret a preliminary vote taken last week that placed the Sears property on top of the list of best locations. Magness claims members of the library department, who attend the meetings, and committee members should have made the vote results public.

“The people, the city manager and the council should know now” what the vote was, Magness said. “This is a major concern and a political issue right now. People have a right to be updated.”

Vote Taken

Hannah Edelstein, chairwoman of the 10-member advisory committee, confirmed that a vote was taken last week and that the 12-acre Sears site on Cleveland Avenue came out on top. But she said the committee decided to withhold the information until a written staff report outlining the merits of the final six selections is completed, probably on June 5.

The committee was fearful that releasing only the tally and not the backup written report would lead to “misinterpretation.”

“We’re afraid it’s going to become a political issue, and we’re a nonpolitical group,” said Edelstein, who operates a public relations and advertising business.

While the Sears property ranked No. 1, two other locations were rated as “satisfactory” by the committee, including keeping and expanding the current 32-year-old main library on E Street, and the old Navy Hospital in Balboa Park.

“He (Magness) wanted me to give him the numbers . . . he wants us to say we are absolutely behind it,” Edelstein said. “We don’t want people to jump to conclusions until we have a final report.”

Sannwald, the library director, defended his department’s treatment of the library commission, saying it was difficult for him tell Magness about the budget hearing because “one day I received four different schedules on when our budget would come up.”

The problem, Sannwald said, is that Magness wants more detail than anyone else on the commission.

“What he wants is more information than what the city manager gives to the City Council,” Sannwald said. “He wants work papers . . . that go into putting the budget together.

“Sometimes his requests for information go beyond what an advisory commission like the library commission should do,” said Sannwald, citing an incident about a year and half ago when the city was having trouble keeping bookmobiles on the road. “He called the garage and wanted to know what the oil pressure was on the engines.”

“I have to say that sometimes I’ve questioned his emphasis in getting too involved in detail and not in policy questions,” Sannwald said.

Budget Not Updated

Jim Dawe, chairman of the library commission, said that the commission was not kept informed about the City Council’s budget hearings, and that the library department had relied on a budget presentation made several months ago that wasn’t updated.

“I think that next year it (library budget proposal) will be brought to us closer to when the hearings will occur,” said Dawe, a lawyer who has been on the commission for two months. “I’ve requested they let the commission know when budget hearings are coming. We need a more formalized procedure.”

Overall, Dawe said, he hasn’t had difficulty obtaining information from the department.

On the matter of the Sears site, Dawe said it seems reasonable to him that the advisory committee would want to wait for the written staff report before releasing the site-selection information.

Earlier this month, the City Council voted to buy the Sears property for $9.3 million to preserve the city’s option of locating a new central library there and selling the rest of the land to private builders.

The city manager’s office says the cost of buying and razing the store and then building a new library on the site would be at least $45 million.