MAYOR MICHAEL NUTTER RETALIATES: CRUEL CUTS TO LIBRARY HOURS FOR LOW-INCOME CHILDREN
Mayor Literacy and his puppet Siobhan Reardon try another bullshit bully move:
The Free Library is now requiring that four workers, not three, be present in a branch before it can open for the day, an abrupt change in practice that is expected to lead to closures.
For years, a library could open with a minimum of three workers on hand, Cathy Scott, president of AFSCME District Council 47, which represents librarians and library supervisors, said yesterday.
The change comes when staffing has been thinned by more than 40 layoffs and after a judge ordered 11 branches that had been scheduled to close to remain open.
“They could obviously leave the libraries open with three workers,” City Councilman Bill Green said last night. “But the library intends to inflict pain on people in neighborhoods, to demonstrate some point I cannot understand.”
Scott said, “I think it’s suspect that they’re doing this after the judge’s order. The minimum staffing requirement has gone up, which will lead to more branches being closed.”
Asked why the change was being made, Sandy Horrocks, a spokeswoman for the Free Library, said, “We have a new director who is saying four is the minimum, and it should really be six workers.” She did not elaborate.
Scott said that union officials asked repeatedly in 2006, 2007 and last year for an increase to four workers for safety reasons. The deployment they wanted was three workers and one guard.
Lutton has a response of his own, which I agree with wholeheartedly:
The city sends cops out alone on patrol, cuts the number of active fire companies, and our schools are understaffed, but *libraries* are where they’re going to make their stand on safety?
Get real. This is clearly a retaliatory move.
Listen: we ALL know the Mayor has been playing games with numbers, claiming that closing the libraries will save $8 million bucks for our cash-strapped city, while others have cited a number closer to $4 million. Meanwhile, the mayor’s own budget director says that after all the cuts, including libraries, the city will have a $40 million dollar surplus. Hey Mike: even if we accept your bullshit $8 million number, that’s still a $32 million surplus if we fund the libraries.
So this has nothing to do with public safety: as Lutton points out, we’re closing fire stations and sending cops out on patrol alone, but the library is where public safety is preeminent? Right, and we have to kill the village to save it, right Mayor Nutter?
The other day my father and I were speculating upon the Mayor’s reasons for pursuing this unconscionable and criminal act against Philadelphia’s children and families, and dad made a good point. By treating Philadelphia as a place where people from around the region come for work and entertainment, and by cutting services for the residents, the Mayor’s stance is one that you would associate with a someone who doesn’t live here, but in the surrounding suburbs. In other words, his position is colonial: Philadelphia is useful for generating revenue, and that’s it. The Mayor does not side with the people who live here; he does not identify with the people who live here, amply illustrated by his devaluation and outright hostility to quality of life issues, like public transit, libraries, recreation centers, and fire departments.
I’ll go further than that. When I look at the neighborhoods slated for library closures, and the Mayor’s insistence that impoverished communities lose what is often their only resource, I think the man is embarrassed by low-income, working class, lower-educated African Americans and has no use for low-income, working class, lower educated whites. That’s not surprising, given that as a child Michael Nutter went to St. Joe’s Preparatory School on scholarship, home to a good number of Greater Philly’s elite movers and shakers. Following this, he went to UPenn, the local ivy league college, where he went to the Wharton business school. According to one activist and disillusioned Nutter volunteer I know (who requested anonymity), “Basically he’s always been the token black smart “nerd” surrounded by a St. Joe’s Prep jock types. He’s still super tight with St. Joe’s alums, they are a big part of his fundraising base and as a volunteer I saw that there were a lot of suburban St. Joe’s alums around the campaign.”
I don’t think the Mayor truly identifies with Philadelphia’s problems as a Philadelphian. I don’t think he has much use for lower-income whites in a city that’s known for racism in the population. And I don’t think he sees himself as a member of the African American community either, the way someone like John Street clearly did.
The man sees himself as a benevolent outsider, laying down the law and how it’s gonna be for us ignorant boobs who live in Philadelphia and can’t possibly know what we’re talking about.
This retaliation will not stand, and the Mayor’s going to come out looking like even more of a heartless, cruel jerk who’s obsessed with punishing low-income children and families for mistakes made by the companies managing the city’s pension fund, and for the the refusal of our wealthy corporations to pay their back taxes.
call your reps on city council and tell them to fight back.
Visit the Coalition to Save the Libraries to learn how you can help. Tell Michael Nutter to stop beating up on poor children. Pick on someone your own size.
January 13th, 2009 at 11:36 pm
It’s hard for me, given his inflexibility on this issue, to not suspect at least a little unionbusting is part of this.