I am usually a lurker on this site, mostly because I feel I don't have a
good grasp of the issues discussed here (but obviously I am interested!) -
and since I was soundly walloped for my one voiced opinion on graffiti.
But, I offer my (and others of my family and acquaintance) opinion on the
library vote as perhaps the voice of those of us who don't "get" the debate.
We're not voting for it. (We are voting for schools.)
I may be wrong, but the site, method, means and manner of obtaining a new
main library seem seriously flawed, and the corollary branch plans seem to
be a weak addendum. I am no longer willing to vote for something with the
good faith that it will all be worked out later in the details. Give me
good details and I'll support it.
This has nothing to do with our property taxes. We pay alot, and are
willing to do so in order to live in this city in a great neighborhood. In
fact, for a terrific library plan, I'd pay more. But closing the central
library down for years, building it in the same location, and shuffling
books and people around in the interim makes no sense to me. Why not
consider a city/county merger? My hometown did it twenty years ago. Why
not move to the Sheraton Hotel site, make it part of the skyway system, make
it a city center rather than an out of the way afterthought? Why bundle the
branch plans in with the catastrophically needed central building?
If all of these questions, and more, have been cogently answered, well then,
I haven't gotten it, and neither have those I have discussed it with.
When I moved here twenty years ago I was excited, anticipating using a big
city library. Had to be much better, I thought, than what I was used to
living in smaller and less progressive towns. While I moved to St. Paul
(what did I know?), I worked in downtown Minneapolis. But, even though my
office was one block from the downtown library, I found I used on a weekly
basis, a beautiful old St. Paul Carnegie library on Marshall Ave. I
preferred that and the downtown St. Paul library to Minneapolis. Why?
Because when I first saw the downtown Minneapolis library, I laughed. I
thought it was a joke. I couldn't believe that a city of this size and
sophistication, to say nothing of striving for a world class, arts-forward,
progressive reputation, could consider that mess, that pole building with
escalators, a world class public library. Everywhere I had lived had
better, and many towns were smaller, less noted and poorer. Then when I
finally moved to Minneapolis, I thought - now I bet I'll have a great old
Carnegie building to take the kids to for story time - and what's our
neighborhood library? The Walker - a groovy basement space with tin can
signage - out of necessity to explain what the heck it is (LIBRARY, thank
you very much), overlooking a littered, unused courtyard. So where do we
go? Ridgedale. But we shouldn't have to.
The rationales given for a new central library are so "well-reasoned", so
"well-studied" and so lame! For example, one of the core reasons given is
that there might be a fire and it isn't well protected! People! The
average voter isn't going to rally around that concept (not to ignore the
Fahrenheit 451 implications). Please! Give us something with heart! How
about "The building is baboon-faced ugly, it never worked, it never could
work, we messed up. Could we just start over and do it again?" That I'd
vote for.
So - bring me a simple, well thought out plan that doesn't look like pork
barrel with 293 amendments tacked on and I'll support it, I'll vote for it,
I'll campaign for it, and I'll help pay for it. But this one isn't it.
Also in support of the mandatory use of Spellcheck, (all grammatical and
punctuation errors are my own).
D. Klein
Kenwood
