City Administrator: "A consultant will be hired to study the library hours."

City Administrator: “A consultant will be hired to study the library hours."
(Source: “$11.75 million budget gives $35K for more library hours, Mary Brownfield, The Carmel Pine Cone, July 7, 2006)

At the 22 June 2006 City Council meeting, the Carmel-by-the-Sea City Council unanimously approved the City’s $11,749,860 budget for 2006/07. Of the additional $100,000 in revenues discovered by City Administrator Rich Guillen, City Council Members Michael Cunningham, Erik Bethel and Gerard Rose decided to allocate $35,000 towards the restoration of 2004 operating hours at Harrison Memorial Library and Park Branch.

At the meeting, Library Director Margaret Pelikan advised the City Council that the $35,000 would be best spent by allotting 4 hours to the Park Branch (children’s library), on Saturdays and 4 hours at Harrison Memorial Library on Sundays.

Yet, City Administrator Guillen not only objected to the allocation of $35,000 to the libraries, he complained that the Carmel Library Board declined 2 years ago to take him up on his suggestion to allow the city to handle the library’s accounting, saving the library $16,000 annually.

In deciding to allocate $35,000 to the libraries, City Councilmen Cunningham, Bethel and Rose stated that Pelikan and Guillen would decide the issue of allocating additional library hours. But, after the public meeting, Mary Brownfield reported in the 7 July 2006 The Carmel Pine Cone, City Administrator Guillen said “a consultant will be hired to study the library hours.”

Questions:

• With policy direction from City Councilmen Cunningham, Bethel and Rose to work with the Library Director to determine the allocation of additional library hours and given the Library Director gave her recommendation as to the allocation of the additional 8 hours, WHY does the City need to spend money hiring a consultant to study the library hours?

• Is this an example of a City Administrator’s personal pique at the Library Board for not having taken him up on his suggestion 2 years ago informing public policy. In other words, is Guillen’s evident emotional antagonism towards the library clouding all objective reason?