While I am not sure I agree with all of Ms. Smart's ideas for Library
funding, I do appreciate the fact that she is floating some ideas out
there to consider. Let's hear from some of the other candidates too.
Also I would encourage anyone to consider consolidation with Hennepin
County as well as a selective library closing here or there.
Also I think a City-wide book read would be great, but that
list....yikes, let's start off with something a little less ambitious
and a little more middle of the road... how about Grapes of Wrath?
Dean E. Carlson
East Harriet, Ward 10
(Reading Harry Potter for the first time, on book 3)
----- Original Message -----
From: Smart for Minneapolis Library Board
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Sunday, July 24, 2005 11:48 pm
Subject: [Mpls] library board candidates and books
Snip...
> In terms of funding, Mr., Cox was not able to attend the Forum at
> Washburn, however, I unveiled a three point plan to increase
> funding for our library system:
>
> 1) Work relentlessly with the City Council, Mayor and Board of E&T
> to assure that a dedicated tax levy is assessed to support the
> full operating/capital costs of our Libraries as one of the most
> essential services that we have. St. Paul uses this model to
> great effect, and the proof is in the pudding as their system has
> not had to make the devastating cuts that Minneapolis has pursued.
> In fact, a study cited by Peter Pearson, the President of the St.
> Paul Friends, indicates that 71% of citizens are enthusiastically
> willing to pay a proper amount as part of their property tax to
> insure that libraries are open full time and providing excellent
> services. In addition, we need to make sure that large businesses
> and corporations are paying the property tax they should be
> paying, rather than getting off with a paltry sum while homeowners
> carry the city's tax burden.
>
> It is essential that our system also ORGANIZE library lovers and
> users to apply sustained and vigrous pressure on our elected
> officials to do the right thing ("Power concedes nothing without
> demand"). St. Paul (and other cities) has done this for a dozen
> years or more and hundreds and thousands of people will come out
> to the offices of government and demand that libraries be properly
> funded. Our present Library Board voted to terminate the Citizen
> Particiation Initiative rather than embrace and work cooperatively
> with this body. In fact, as a library activist in Nokomis, the
> relationship between Board and community has been more adversarial
> than cooperative. This has got to change. St. Paul recognizes
> that devoted library users are one of the most important resources
> we have to make libraries better and we should too.
>
> 2) MInneapolis should implement a building impact fee, wherein
> each new house, development and significant renovation, will be
> assessed an impact fee that can go directly to libraries, in
> particular to collections and acquisitions (Franklin library has
> four copies of Jane Eyre on one shelf, but the fiction shelves are
> more empty than they are full!)
>
> 3) Our system brings in a very small amount of local and national
> grant money, less than a quarter of a million. With millions and
> millions of dollars available in all kinds of philanthropic and
> governmental organizations, there is really no excuse for not
> increasing this amount of funding many times over. I have been a
> development consultant and grantwriter for about 20 years and I
> can bring this kind of skill to the Board.
>
Snip...
> Finally, in terms of books, as a Board member, I will recommend
> that Minneapolis also adopt the St. Paul idea of the entire City
> reading one book, and I have a few suggestions:
>
> Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paolo Friere - this could be the most
> powerful and important book ever written about our excrutiating
> times - the oppresser is also oppressed, but only the oppressed
> can catalyze true liberation - and how...
>
> Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe - what really has been the
> effect of white supremacy/colonialism/imperialism and how has the
> european invasion of the world torn everything apart?
>
> Predator and Prey by Ward Churchill - how many of us wake up every
> morning and realize that our european ancestors brutally
> devastated 98% of the Indigenous First Nations living in this
> place and that today genocide prevails - when an Indigenous
> person's life expectancy is less than 50 years? that each step we
> take is on stolen land? that the lovely woodwork in our older
> homes is from stolen trees?
>
> Affirmative Acts by June Jordan - a political poet and philosopher
> not to be ignored but treasured
>
> Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale by Maria Mies - did
> you know that the genocide of nine million women in the church-
> initiated witch-burning times provided the opportunity for church
> and state to appropriate an enormous amount of capital and
> property, providing the material basis for colonialism to begin with?
>
> People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn - anybody
> interested in the Truth?
>
> and of course, everything by our own treasure, Louise Erdrich
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