A Ruckus That Never Should Have Been

It required a national ruckus, but the Los Angeles City Council today may finally bestow a well-deserved honor on a Watts woman. Councilman Rudy Svorinich Jr. will present a council motion to name the brand-new Watts library branch after Alma Reaves Woods, 71.

Woods dedicated 40 years to promoting reading and the importance of the written word. She knocked on doors to beg for a bond issue for a new library. She raised money, dollar by dollar. She lugged books to pass out at housing projects. But with a new Watts library finally built and ready for dedication this coming Saturday, the city’s Library Commission balked at naming it after her.

Seems that the commission was stuck between an expired policy for naming libraries and a new one still under consideration. The commission had decided that the whole matter could wait.

Well, Mayor Richard Riordan announced Monday that the commission--made up of his appointees--”should not hold the city back” from naming the library in time for its opening. Riordan allowed that Svorinich could “best gauge the desires of the constituents” in Watts, adding that he supported the councilman’s motion to name the library after Woods.

If national and local public outcry is any indication of how the council will vote when it considers the motion today--and it usually would be--the council will surely undo the Library Commission’s bureaucratic mess, which showed no political savvy and even less common sense.