MAYOR MICHAEL NUTTER IS A LIAR AND A HYPOCRITE.
Young Philly Politics has the goods on our disgraceful mayor And to think I almost voted for this disingenuous liar.
Administration spokesman Doug Oliver said Mayor Nutter expressed willingness to explore the concept of learning centers.
“But, at the end of the day,” Oliver said, “the final solution will need to preserve the $8 million.”
And, Oliver said, one of the administration’s primary points is that the library system is too big and needs to be pruned.
Really? That’s not what’s on the lying hypocrite’s campaign website. In fact Mr. Nutter boasts about how he found additional funding for the library when it faced cuts in 2005:
THE FREE LIBRARY
In 2005, the City announced that twenty branch libraries would shift to half-day service and many head librarians would be laid-off. Library supporters protested the “reorganization plan.” Councilman Nutter called for an investigation to evaluate the Library System and to find additional funding in order to restore this essential City service. After a five hour hearing, which was attended by a capacity crowd of students, library supporters and employees, restoring library funding became a critical issue during that year’s budget discussions. City Council eventually rejected the budget cut, restored funding, and returned all branch libraries to full-day service with head librarians.
Meanwhile, I called Councilman Bill Green’s office today, where I learned that the Mayor has steadfastly refused to give exact dollar amounts for how much the library closings will save. As any grant writer can tell you, if you can’t give an exact figure to the funder, it’s impossible to get a grant, because funders want to know what they’re signing up for. Green’s office suspects this may be deliberate and that the Mayor is not interested in listening to other people’s points of view or alternatives, which may explain why the Mayor’s office told me this morning that there are no plans to pressure Lurie and the Eagles to pay their debt.
Meanwhile local activist Marc Stier makes some good points in comments at Young Philly Politics:
But one critical fact I picked up yesterday: saving the branches would only cost $4.5 million not %8 million. The other 3.5 million is in cuts to the cntral staff, which I’m told by people who should know IS overstaffed.
It’s not about the money. It’s about restructuring the library because the people who run it have wanted to reduce branches for a long time. Why is a long story and I only have some educated guesses. But I’m absolutely sure now that this what is going on.
And that explains why there is no serious rationale for the branches they cut. There couldn’t be because all of the branches are busy and all are needed to cover the neighborhoods of the city.
But they don’t are about covering the neighborhoods.
So they decided they couldn’t cut the ones in rich areas, couldn’t cut the ones in the poorest areas, and took 11 in the middle, trying to spread the pain around Council districts.
This has been expressed to me at rallies as well. Others have suggested that in our neighborhood they want to build a shopping center where the rec center and the library now stand: I have no idea if this is true, but I do know that we have a wealth of transit and highway access in my neighborhood, which sits just over the border from so-called “University City.” the 13, 36, and 11 trolleys all stop within a block of my house, as does the R3 regional line and the 64 bus. I am five minutes from the east-bound entrance to I-76, and 10 minutes from the west-bound entrance. I am typically not paranoid about McPenntrification, but I cannot deny that with the neighborhood changing, Penn’s designs for us as well as the University’s egregious history must be taken into account.
I am getting considerably sick of Michael Nutter and his flailing around to find excuses for shutting down so many branches of our library system, especially when there are so many glaring holes in this “well-thought out plan” that it looks like a slice of swiss cheese.
Don’t let Michael Nutter steal our branch libraries. Call the Mayor’s action center at 215-686-3000. Find your representative on City Council and let them know you won’t stand for it.
I can’t wait til the lying hypocrite comes to my neighborhood next week. I’m betting he chickens out, because this neighborhood is organizing, this neighborhood is angry, and this neighborhood is NOT going to let what few resources we have get stolen from us so the Mayor doesn’t have to piss off Jeff Lurie and the rest of his corporate pals.
December 17th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
This is horrible to close these libraries and public pools . Especially in southwest philly. I know first hand what this is going to do. Remind Mayor Nutter of Antonio Quinton Clark who was the Bartram High school student who was brutally murdered last yr. We can not have any more Antonio Quinton clarkes in philadelphia. His case is unsolved. You know the great kid who worked at the very rec center that they want to close in southwest. He was stabbed multiple times , tortured wrapped naked in cellephane and his body dumped on a loading dock behind an electronics store. Close these places down and we will have more antonio clarks
December 17th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
I know, I know. It’s horrible. it’s literally robbing these kids of their future, and it’s not fair.
the real thieves are the peopel in the congress and the senate who, for the past 20 years, have systematically dismanteled every single protection applied in the wake of the great depression. they acted solely in the interests of wealthy investors, saying essentially “?there are no rules on wall street as long as you make money”.
It’s those people and the investments they enabled that drained our pension fund: subprime mortgages, credit default swaps, etc. And now little kids and families in low-income neighborhoods have to shoulder that burden? that’s a crock of shit in my opinion.