MELANIE BILLIG: "You will certainly lose my Sterling Circle membership, and Harvey's."

This is the fourth in a series of five “In Her/His Own Words” posts on the Library.

Regular Meeting
Tuesday, February 6, 2007

XI. Orders of Council
A. Review the Organization Study of Library Operations from John Goss of Ralph Andersen & Associates and provide policy direction.

“Mayor and Council, Melanie Billig.”

“...I think the one really nice aspect of this report is that repeatedly it acknowledges the incredible work done by the Library Board, the Friends of the Library and also by the Carmel Public Library Foundation. And I just have to look at that report, and see even having been on the Library Foundation for four years and being intimately involved with the library, that this library is so incredibly outstanding. And to sacrifice in any way, shape or form the outstanding, the excellence, of this institution, and the obvious affection that this institution holds in this community by the tremendous amounts of money that are contributed every single year to the programs, and the equipment and the books, et cetera. I think it’s just a marvel that we are so incredibly lucky to have the donors that we have whether they are in this community or outside this community.”

“I think the one thing that’s really distressing is that this proverbial issue of non-residential use. Well, we are a very tiny community, we all recognize that, but the point is that those people who contribute to the Library Foundation are the very people that the report continuously talks about being non-residential users. And as a resident of this community, I don’t have a problem with that. And I rejoice in the fact that as much culture as this community can spread around the better off we are.”

“And we just received reports tonight that we’re not exactly bankrupt. And we’re not exactly on a tremendously limited financial basis. So that we all appreciate that we have to be cost effective and we have to be concerned about our budget, but I don’t think we should ever use that as an excuse for trying to fundamentally change, and I’m not accusing you of that at all, I’m just making a statement based upon looking at this report, to use that as an excuse to make any really major, fundamental changes and in the way the library is administered or its operations. Everything can be fine tuned and we understand that, but the issue is that we don’t want to sacrifice those important donations that we’re getting. And I can tell you, you will lose donations, big time, if you start changing the way this is operated. You will certainly lose my Sterling Circle membership, and Harvey’s. Because I, we, have no intention of contributing a large amount of money to an organization that we bought into under one pretext, or one understanding, and then find it being tremendously altered.”

“So I thank you for that. And I hope you will not change things!”

Goss Rebuttal:
On Non-Residents: “...it’s only an observation, to explain that one of the policy issues for this city, I think, is to determine what is your community that you serve.”

On City’s Finances: “You obviously downsized over the last 3 years, you’ve looked at ways to increase revenues, and this is really offered in the same spirit, to look at these opportunities.”