Oppose New Library Plan to Cut Service and Personnel

On October 3rd, the Joint Powers Board of the Santa Cruz Public Library approved a plan for a Brave New World Library, one which gives us the worst of all possible Santa Cruz Libraries. Most people are not aware of the new plan's drastic cuts to library personnel and how it will affect not only the workers who are laid off or cut back, but the service that is given the public.

Board member and Scotts Valley city council member Jim Reed said it well when he admitted that the plan would worsen service overall and in particular that cutting the Scotts Valley branch reference workers from 3 full time workers to 1 half time position will substantially diminish service where he lives. Despite the supposed improvement of service by the extension of branch hours, the personnel reductions will produce the same diminishment in service at all branches.

To implement the plan's eventual goal of generating a $5 million surplus for "new technology", extending branch hours, and unspecified purposes, 14 part-time library clerks will get pink slips Nov. 1, and the full-time clerks will be cut down to half time and unable to afford health insurance; meanwhile reference librarians' positions --the people at the answer desk and phone--are being drastically reduced by attrition and management-induced early retirement: to be "replaced" by electronic reference, volunteers and part-time, temporary workers.

This is, as one library employee put it, part of an national trend to target the least powerful workers for the enrichment of top level management.

If you don't believe it's happening in Santa Cruz, take a look at these figures from a study by UCSC associate, sociologist Paul Johnston: the 12 top executives in Santa Cruz' city government now earn more than any governor in the United States, including the highest paid: New York state's governor--and they make more, of course, than Jerry Brown.

Salaries for the City of Santa Cruz 63 top managers have increased 28 percent since 2003, more than twice the increase given lower level workers, whose pay when adjusted for inflation has actually decreased 3 percent.

Former Santa Cruz mayor Mike Rotkin pointed out that the downgrading of library positions is part of the recent trend in city government to replace full-time permanent positions with temporary part-time slots, resulting in impoverished workers without benefits, adequate pay, or job security. This not only attacks the workers and the work force but the social and economic fabric of our city and country.

It also violates the civil service code--law--which mandates temporary and part time positions only for work which is truly temporary in nature.

What should the Joint Powers Board do?

Be really in charge of the process, instead of acceding to goals set by a wrongheaded and self-interested staff/executive process. Go back to the drawing board. Change the plan by rolling back the gross inequality in pay between lower and upper level employees. The library director receives a six-figure salary for having recommended, for example, that all on-the spot reference workers be eliminated from the central branch, a suggestion since rejected by the powers that be. Reject the notion that all reference should devolve to electronic means; and instead prioritize personal service.

Finally: Very, very, very oddly, the layoffs are coming while the library has a million dollar surplus, and the plan is projecting a five million dollar surplus by using these anti-personnel tactics. If the staff and board have such a surplus and think they can increase it fivefold, they should not be axing the work force at the heart of the library.

At last night's meeting not one person--INCLUDING ALL THE BOARD MEMBERS--had a good word to say about the new plan. Let's reject it and start over.

Email or call your elected officials about this issue before they approve the plan:

City of Santa Cruz:
citycouncil [at] cityofsantacruz.com

Santa Cruz City and Scotts Valley residents can also email or call:
Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors:
greg.caput [at] co.santa-cruz.ca.us
ellen.pirie [at] co.santa-cruz.ca.us
mark.stone [at] co.santa-cruz.ca.us
neal.coonerty [at] co.santa-cruz.ca.us john.leopold [at] co.santa-cruz.ca.us

Scotts Valley residents can call or email the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors (above) or the Scotts Valley city council:
seajems [at] pacbell.net
dene [at] bustichi.com
rlj12 [at] comcast.net
dlindslind [at] earthlink.net
jimreedSV [at] gmail.com

written by

Carol Long, Santa Cruz City/County Resident
Master's, Library Science
Former reference librarian