Supporters show up en masse to support library
Published on February 27th, 2008
Library supporters begged the Selectmen last Tuesday to avert a proposed $300,000 cut to the facility next year by instituting the $170 trash fee in FY’09 .
During the most recent Selectmen’s meeting, a crowd of local citizens crammed into the Town Hall hearing room in a show of support for the facility, which would lose nearly 40 percent of its revenue stream under a recommendation by Town Administrator David Ragucci.
Based upon Ragucci’s proposal, the Stoneham library funding would be slashed from a requested $790,000 to $490,000. If the Selectmen were to implement a trash fee in FY’09, all of the lost funding would be replenished, based upon the Town Administrator’s plan.
The Selectmen later voted 4 to 1, with Chairman George Seibold opposed, to reject the garbage charge, unless the town’s employee unions agreed to join the state’s Group Insurance Commission (GIC) for health benefits.
At the outset of his budget presentation, the Town Administrator insisted that the library would not be shuttering its doors to the public in FY’09, an assumption that the majority of citizens appeared to be under.
“I just want to get accurate information out to folks,” said Ragucci, reiterating that the library would receive close to half-a-million dollars next year. “Now granted, you’re not going to have your library six days a week.”
According to Library Director Mary Todd, who explained that plans had existed to close the library until a week prior, services have been eroding significantly over recent fiscal years.
Without the $300,000, she warned, the Stoneham library would lose its state certification and with it about $30,000 in state aid, as well as the ability to lend-out and borrow materials to other facilities.
According to Todd, those consequences would last for at least two years, due to the regulations by which the state’s Board of Library Commissioners certify local libraries.
The library director, who pointed out that Stoneham has slashed its hours of operations from 61 to 51 per week and lost seven full-time employees over the past four years, argued that the latest proposal would essentially equate to closing the building’s doors.
“It’s a loss of more than just dollars. In the last four years, the library has lost 10 hours of operation and seven employees,” said Todd. “I can’t stress to you enough how devastating this would be to your library.”
“I can almost guarantee you that every certified librarian on the staff will be looking for another job,” the library veteran further warned. “I don’t think you can point to any other department in town that has lost this percentage. If you’re going to do this and balance the budget on the back of the library, you’re never going to get it back.”
After several local residents implored the Selectmen to support a trash fee, Elm Street resident Edie Previdi chastised the town officials for the manner in which the budget has been presented to citizens in recent years.
According to Previdi, who took particular aim at the parties who spread rumors that the library was closing its doors, she felt that the townspeople were almost being threatened with frightening losses of services that never materialized from year to year.
“I’m very disappointed in how were fighting scared, and how you make us panic,” the Elm Street resident said. “I haven’t seen these kind of shenanigans. It’s been awful the past couple of years, because you’re almost threatening us.”
Ragucci later assured the gathering that his presentation was based upon the town’s true financial condition, given the figures available at the time.
According to the Town Administrator, he was not proposing the reduction to frighten library users, but because the town’s other departments could no longer sustain future cuts.
Later admitting that he had suggested that the library be zero-funded and closed in FY’09, the former Everett mayor pointed out that school administrators voluntarily agreed to take-on a greater reduction in services, as they thought it was unfair for the library to shoulder such a significant portion of the deficit.
“Yes at the time, the recommendation was to close the library. Why? Because it was either take it out of the school department or close the library,” said Ragucci “It was through the work of the School Committee [that $490,000 was returned].”
“You can’t cut police and fire anymore. Any time you cut more people, you create overtime. You create stress and fatigue,” the Town Administrator added. “These are not shenanigans. I’m not playing games. It’s too important.”
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