Letter to the Union News, February 21, 2003

It's like deja vu all over again, as Yogi Berra would say. Has it only been eight short years since we had this very same conversation about closing branch libraries?

Has it been just eight short years that the public has tried, to no avail, to get the City Council to hold accountable the non-profit private association that runs our libraries?

And what about the public? Has it been just eight short years in which area residents forgot that the Springfield Libraries Museums Association (that privately held, not-for-profit association that keeps trying to convince us they're on our side) tried to do this to us before?

Well, I haven't forgotten. I haven't forgotten all the money Springfield taxpayers have given to that organization, only to see them put up million-dollar statues and half-million dollar fences. I haven't forgotten their excuses, "can't get grant money for staffing" (the public schools do it all the time ) "can't use that money for the libraries" - can't, can't, can't.

I thought I had heard it all, until I read in the paper that Joseph Carvahlo, executive director of the association, said we can just go out of town to use the library. We can't. Unfortunately, 24 percent of the people who live in Forest Park don't have a car.

This decision has nothing to do with money; it is all about priorities. The SLMLA's priorities are not the same as the citizens of Springfield. Association members chose what to do with the money we've given them for the last eight years. They chose to rehab buildings that were already ADA compliant, twice! They can hide behind the Americans with Disabilities Act issue, but the truth is they had choices.

The SLMA hasn't forgotten; members have been waiting eight years for another chance to do what they wanted to do all along. Their priorities are not the libraries. They learned a lesson eight years ago; don't give the public time to react, empty the buildings. get rid of the books, use the money for their own priorities. And they can because they own everything.

Have the citizens of Springfield learned anything in eight years? It is time for leadership and real leaders should begin to question what is truly the best way to proceed. This system of a privately held, not-for-profit institution that runs both libraries and museums is antiquated and in desperate need of repair. Now is the time. It needs to be fixed.

MAUREEN POSNER

Springfield