If you feel passionate about the future of the Brevard Public libraries here is a open note to you From Ken Previti, Advocacy Committee...
The next Brevard County Commission meeting is on Thursday, July 22 at 6 p.m. in Viera at the County Commission Chambers. The last item on the agenda is the issue about the libraries. Please show your support in whatever what you can.
Friends of the Library,
Your library needs your help again. Please do whatever you can.
There is no emergency - YET.
However, "privatization" - awarding a juicy government contract - for "managing" the libraries is on the table. No other county in all of Florida has replaced even a single free public library with a private for-profit corporation. Commissioners Infantini and Anderson have already begun the process for all 17 libraries in Brevard. Is this stewardship a positive and conservative thing to do? Is it for the good of our citizens?
Please do the following:
1) Contact (phone, visit, e-mail) every Commissioner with your own comments. (See contact information below.)
2) Write letters to the editor at Florida Today with your comments.
http://www.floridatoday.com/content/forms/services/letters.shtml
3) Pass this on to as many library supporters as possible, and ask them to do the same.
Our Message: "DON'T SELL US OUT."
We love our Library, and we vote.
IMAGINE the following:
Imagine - Elected officials who govern but do not believe that their county serves people better than non-government. These well paid commissioners seek to award a juicy government contract to an out-of-state corporation to do their jobs for them with our taxes!
Imagine - A County Commissioner who publicly asks to use funds for services that are unrelated to the library taxes - funding which is illegal and/or impossible.
Imagine - Sending Brevard tax dollars to Maryland or Texas while firing people who work and live and pay taxes in Brevard. (The "ripple effect" on Brevard's small businesses is nearly unimaginable.) The fact that our present librarians are educated, highly qualified, experienced specialists never seems to enter the question for some reason.
Imagine - Elected officials underfunded the public libraries with cuts that inadvertently went from "trimming fat to cutting muscle and bone" (32% of prior tax cuts).
Imagine - A private corporation will answer to the people responsible for awarding them a juicy government contract. Will it serve the preferences based on 3.5 million annual patron visits or the choices made by the one commissioner's appointees in Melbourne Beach's advisory group who want to censor one DVD that offends her now and anything else she might find offensive in the future?
Imagine - An elected official who, while wining and dining on Marcos Island, discovered a corporation he might award a juicy government contract to, a corporation which will do the governing and overseeing of a library system that has been "governed" into financial straights.
Imagine - Commissioners obfuscating simple millage rates in order to claim that millage rate increases are "more taxes." (Reality See-Saw: property values go up and millage goes down - property values go down and millage goes up - in order to keep the same dollar amount.)
Imagine - Elected officials claiming "ideological philosophies" while denying services to the public who pays for those services.
Imagine - Elected public servants destroying property values by reducing services which deliver $1.83 in value for every $1 in taxes. (For proof of this see http://dlis.dos.state.fl.us/bld/roi/ )
Imagine - Hundreds of thousands of present dollars already collected and held by Friends of the Library groups being used to assure profits for Maryland or Texas companies who in turn will "manage" funding.
Imagine - Over 73,000 hours annualy of free volunteer time in Brevard libraries being used to create larger profits for Maryland and Texas corporations.
Imagine - The political machinations behind the scenes seek to destroy a management system that has been judged as superb and to replace it with a juicy government contract. Why does all of this seem so vidictive? What does it have to do with maintaining the good of the libraries and the citizens served?
Imagine - The story printed in Florida Today (see the pdf file attachment) tells of two commissioners who wanted to continue cutting library funding and lost the vote. They then try to attain the opposite of what we and all the others who support our libraries were promised.
Oops! We don't have to imagine any of this. This is all being done to a frustrated public who seeks elected officials who will solve problems, not create more problems. We do not need defeatists; we need problem solvers.
Please contact all of our County Commissioners with one simple message.
"DON'T SELL US OUT."
We love our Library, and we vote.
Ken Previti, Advocacy Committee
Contact your county commissioner...
District 1: Commissioner Robin Fisher
VICE CHAIRMAN
Phone: (321)264-6750
e-mail: D1.Commissioner@brevardcounty.us
District 2: Commissioner Chuck Nelson
Phone: (321)454-6601
e-mail: chuck.nelson@brevardcounty.us
District 3: Commissioner Trudie Infantini
Phone: (321)952-6300
e-mail: D3.Commissioner@brevardcounty.us
District 4: Commissioner Mary Bolin
CHAIRMAN
Phone: (321)633-2044
e-mail: D4.Commissioner@brevardcounty.us
District 5: Commissioner Andy Anderson
Phone: (321)253-6611
e-mail: D5.Commissioner@brevardcounty.us
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5 comments:
Actually, Florida libraries provide $8.32 in value to the comunnity for every $1 spent on them. See http://dlis.dos.state.fl.us/bld/roi/index.cfm
I do agree that the library should be controlled by its own community and not privatized - but I can barely even understand this post. It might help your cause to rewrite this post in a more coherent manner instead of an angry rant. Some of the sentences above don't even make any sense.
While I agree that libraries should be controlled and run by their own communities - this is a terrible post. I can hardly understand half of it. Perhaps you should re-post this in a more understandable format. Right now it just reads like a confusing, angry rant.
Infantini... I'm convinced she'd dissolve the entire county government and remove all services if she thought it would balance the budget. With her accounting background, I'm not surprised. Perhaps she should have run for a comptroller position or something, instead of holding a position where she is supposed to be concerned with the quality of life for her constituents and the governance thereof.
Here's a thought Trudie, raise taxes! I know it's not popular to leverage taxes, but we need to grow up and realize that before the real estate bubble burst and wall street conned us Florida was struggling with the hangover from the Save Our Homes debacle. We reduced our income from taxes and lo and behold we couldn't pay for services. She should be screaming for the repeal of Save Our Homes every day, proposing a penny sales tax increase or I don't know, hold a bake sale! Something other than holding a public services fire sale.
Thank you for reading the blog. This open letter is from
Ken Previti, Advocacy Committee
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