The Mayor's Library Plan: Bad, Worse, Worst, and Illegal

Last Friday, April 13, in one of his final acts as “Acting” Business Administrator, Anthony Roberts transmitted to the members of City Council a Proposal to re-open the neighborhood branches of the Trenton Public Library that have been closed since the fall of 2010. Yesterday, thanks to Jim Carlucci, a copy of the proposal was posted online.

In his State of the City Address delivered March 21, Mayor Tony Mack spoke at some length – but without any details – about what he called “The Mayor’s Learning Center Library Initiative.” I was skeptical of this plan as soon as he announced it, observing that nothing about this plan had been composed in public view, and that the management and Trustees of the Public Library had been excluded from any participation in its drafting. From that date on, it was looking like the Mayor’s plan to reopen the Branches would not involve the Trenton Free Public Library, at all.

The Roberts document confirms those suspicions. In his cover note, Mr. Roberts attaches a proposal from the Young Scholars Institute (YSI) of Trenton wherein the YSI narrates its ideas for opening and running the neighborhood branches. Mr. Roberts also explains to Council that “we are entertaining ‘other’ non-profits in addition to the Young Scholar’s (sic) Institute to mange (sic) the operation of the Mayor’s Learning Center Libraries.” [Emphasis in the original, as are the typos.- KM]

I don’t know if this is the best of the proposals, or just the first completed. I am filled with dread at the prospect of seeing more plans, because this Proposal is completely flawed. Let me briefly walk you through the elements that I find are Bad, Worse and Worst. And the whole idea is Illegal, as I shall explain.

The Bad

First off, with all due respect to the Young Scholars’ Institute, who I do not know but who according to the website  is “a non-profit year-round learning center for Trenton area children in grades K-12… established in 1990.” I am sure it’s are a fine organization that has done good work in the community for close to a quarter-century. But this is a bad proposal.

Apart from naming the founder and executive director of the Institute, Jerri Morrison, there is not one person listed in the narrative or Budget. Not one other member of the staff, none of the ten member Board of Trustees, and not one individual who would be associated with this Project.

The narrative describes how three branches (this proposal didn’t include the East Trenton Branch, although Mr. Roberts claims that location will be rolled in to the plan) will be staffed by one part-time Program Director, two part-time Librarians, eight other paid staff and 15 volunteers at each site.

Have any key personnel been identified? What are their qualifications? We don’t know. How can the three senior staff cover three different branches, part-time? Not explained. When will the branches be open? Monday to Saturday, we are told, but there are no estimates of hours per week.

Although the YSI has over 20 years of experience with the K-12-aged children of the City, has the YSI had experience with Adult Learners and Readers? We don’t know.

Many of the City’s residents are not primary English speakers. What provisions will YSI make for multi-lingual staff and reading materials? None that are mentioned here.

The budget attached to the proposal, at $432,370, is incompletely described, and probably inadequate. What period of time does this cover? We don’t know. How far will a line of $60,000 for “Supplies” go to cover 3 branches, especially if that line is supposed to include books, periodicals, library cards, software, etc., not including an ambitiously described agenda of services, programs, activities and newsletters? Not very far. This budget is unsatisfactory. Which brings us to:

The Worse

YSI has a long track record in the community, but their financial records indicate a long stretch of consecutive loss-making years conducting their own traditional activities. This link, thanks to Dennis McGrath, posts the  yearly tax Forms 990 filed with Internal Revenue for the YSI. These forms, summarized here, shows that for the last ten years, the expenses of the Institute have exceeded income by nearly $1.3 Million. The last eight years have run at continuous deficits, and the deficit of the last year reported, 2010, ran to almost $300,000. In that year alone.

Now, there are apparently some endowment funds or other resources that the Institute has been drawing on to cover those losses, as the “Net assets or fund balances” line on the Form 990 indicates. But at the rate they are being depleted, these funds may disappear as early as next year.

Does the Young Scholars’ Institute have the financial resources to take on the operation of several Library Branches as one of its programs? Based on these IRS returns, I have to say No! Not at all.

So, where will the money to open the branches and keep them open come from? The proposal does not say. Yesterday on a Facebook group, there was a great deal of informed speculation, among several individuals with professional experience on the matter, that some of these funds might come from the city’s federal Community Development Block Grant award.

But Mr. Roberts is silent on the matter in his communication to Council. How the resources will be provided to open the branches and keep them open and managed by a group with a consistent track record of losing money is an open question.

That’s pretty bad. But here’s:

The Worst

Neither YSI’s proposal, nor Mr. Roberts’ cover note, nor the Mayor in his State of the City address, even begin to explain why the effort to re-open the Branches has not been assigned to or attempted by the Trenton Free Public Library. And I do not get that! We have a public body with a long history in the City (much of the recent history unsavory, but let’s put that aside for now!), with public visibility, public involvement, and (in theory) public accountability.

Why do we need a new initiative, with a new group, conceived in secrecy, badly designed, with no or inadequate resources, accountable to no one but the Mayor?

We don’t!

What in the world does the Mayor have against the folks at the Public Library? We don’t know for sure, but the Trustees of the Library apparently have some clue. I will offer this link to the official minutes of the March 2012 trustees meeting (scroll down to March 2012, click on “View Minutes”). I will say nothing else about the contents of these minutes, other than to state my opinion that this is one of the most extraordinary public documents of any kind I have ever read! Thanks, again, to Dennis McGrath for the tip! If you don’t read this now, you will certainly hear about it soon. Trust me.

Which leads us, finally, to:

The Illegal

The role of Public Libraries in New Jersey communities is a long and honorable one. It is codified in Chapter 40:54 of the New Jersey statute books, which lays out in great detail how libraries are to be organized, funded and operated in the name of the People by local municipalities. The State takes seriously the idea of the Free Public Library.

I will draw your attention specifically to Chapter 40:54, Sections 24 and 25. Both of these sections describe how property is to be acquired or built for the purposes of housing libraries. However the buildings are acquired, “The title of any real estate so purchased shall be taken in the name of the  municipality.” And that is the case here in Trenton. Library buildings are owned by the city.

Here’s the money quote: “The use and control of such real estate shall be in the board of  trustees of the free public library so long as it shall be used for free public  library purposes.” [Emphasis mine. – KM]

You cannot get any clearer than that. The mayor is planning to re-open the neighborhood branches of the closed public Libraries. He calls them libraries, They will be performing traditional library services, issuing library cards, and lending books and other materials.

But he is planning on doing so without the Trenton Free Public Library. And that is Illegal under the laws of the State of New Jersey.

It looks like another Tony Mack Plan is likely to crash and burn. I feel sad and angry that for a year now Tony Mack has raised expectations and hopes for the reopening of a treasured community resource, our neighborhood library. And we only have this to show for it: a poor proposal without resources or qualifications, illegally excluding the  people and institution best positioned to run it for reasons of personal spite, as far as anyone can tell.

Another major Tony Mack failure. Shame on him!