Monday, March 21, 2011

Peoria Council"s Folly - SouthSide Library

It wasn't too long ago that the City Council voted to give the library board approximately a quarter million dollars to renovate a Harrison Housing unit into a library. Then, they later voted to give the library board over $80,000.00 to install an elevator in the building.

Now the library sets empty. Worse is that the library hours were from 10-5 Monday through Friday which killed library usage from the start. Closed on weekends and open when people are or should be working or in class. I visited the library many times. It was busy only after school hours and in the summer for kids. Rows of books that had never been checked out and stuck together when I tried to remove them from a shelf.

The elevator could only be operated by the librarian and on my visits I found nothing on the second floor but some pottery class storage and 4 computers, two that didn't work, plus a surveillance camera and his and hers restrooms. Restrooms were also available on the first floor.

This just another example of how the city reached a deficit of $13 million. And soon the library will come asking for more money than the $40,000,000.00 they received courtesy of the property tax owners.

Time for change on the council.

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