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Library Friends Have Choice Words for Those Considering Budget Cuts

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Call me chicken, but if I were on the San Diego City Council, I’d avoid ticking off the Friends of the San Diego Public Library.

This is particularly true under district elections. One hot neighborhood issue these days, and you could find yourself circling the help-wanted ads.

From a political standpoint, the Friends of the San Diego Library is an annoying group.

First, there are so many members (upward of 5,000), and they’re all over the city (everywhere there’s a library, brother).

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And they’ve got this odd idea that they should speak up when the library system is threatened with a 62% budget cut that is positively bibliocidal.

Maybe they feel they’ve earned the right to be uppity because Friends members volunteered 65,000 hours to the library system last year, valued at $520,000 by the city. And they raised $122,000 through book sales.

Budget season is some weeks away, but the Friends are already at the ramparts.

Posters are going up in the downtown library and its 31 branches. Phone calls are being directed to City Hall.

There is talk of petitions, black armbands and demonstrations. My guess is that we haven’t seen the half of it.

What has the Friends riled is the city manager’s repeated warning that, as fiscal matters stand today, the library’s already anorexic budget will be cut by $8.1 million. That includes forfeiting $900,000 in matching state aid.

One plan being discussed would mean laying off all library employees with less than 17 years of service.

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The downtown library would be open 35 hours a week, down from the current 60. Each of the branches would be open 12 hours a week, down from 48.

Although the 12-hour plan has a certain share-the-pain logic, it also presents visions of librarians scurrying hither and yon like so many day laborers.

Not to mention confusion about when branches are open: If this is Tuesday, can I read a book in Pacific Beach?

Another possibility, favored by Head Librarian William Sannwald would be to close some branches, rent out the sites and keep the surviving branches open longer.

In 1982, a consultant recommended closing branches in East San Diego, Logan Heights, Ocean Beach, Skyline Hills, University Heights and Valencia Park. The Friends rose up, and the recommendation was killed.

Doubtless many feel this is what will happen again this time: That surely the council won’t sanction closing libraries or savagely slashing hours.

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Maybe.

But planning for the 62% cut continues in the city manager’s office, and if any council member has a plan to avert it, neither the Friends nor Sannwald has heard about it. (Ron Roberts had a tax plan, but it died.)

“The council is giving out mixed signals,” Sannwald said. “They all say they support the library, but none is finding any new revenue. At the same time, they’re finding new (non-library) ways of spending the money we have.”

Census to Make Waves

Stand up and be counted.

Census workers Saturday will try to locate and count an elusive and furtive segment of the local population.

These are rootless people who move frequently in search of free lodging, often staying illegally, one step ahead of eviction. They just want to be left alone.

Scorned by nearby landowners; suspicious of law enforcement; the target of much civic controversy. To keep them from being frightened into hiding, the press will be kept away.

The migrants of North County?

No. The boat-dwellers of San Diego Bay and Mission Bay.

Who says Sheriff John doesn’t get any respect?

Announcements for the Honorary Deputy Sheriff’s Assn. banquet at the San Diego Hilton showed silhouettes of John Duffy and, yes, George Washington.

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The caption read: “Honor Our Founding Fathers.”

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