Public Comment

As a librarian recently retired from the Berkeley Public Library, I want to respond to Peter Warfield's recent commentary in the Planet on the lawsuit against the Library’s plans to replace South and West branches with new buildings rather than renovating and expanding the existing structures. 

Warfield attributes the lawsuit to a group called Concerned Library Users (CLU), which is actually just another manifestation of the Library Users Association, Warfield's pocket organization that has opposed the introduction of new circulation technology and construction of new library buildings first in San Francisco and now Berkeley. As a San Francisco resident, however, Warfield has no standing to litigate his claim that demolition and replacement of South and West branches is not a legitimate use of funds from Measure FF. 

The CLU lawsuit contends that Measure FF provided only for renovation and expansion, not replacement of library branches. The technical and legal merits of this will be settled in court. What I do know is that the architects and engineers hired to evaluate both branches, working with interested community participants, found that constructing new structures would be far more cost-effective than renovating and expanding the existing buildings. 

This wasn’t an arbitrary decision by library management or the Board of Library Trustees (BOLT), but the result of a year-long public process that considered both alternatives. Since I live two blocks from South Branch (and occasionally work there as a substitute librarian), I participated in the public workshops pertaining to South Branch. Most participants were concerned with the basic issue of how a limited budget could be used to achieve the most safe and efficient building to deliver library services. 

Warfield and a couple of his allies attended the first workshop and denounced the library for even considering a major addition to the existing South Branch, let alone replacing it. The rest of us stuck around and learned about the problems with the existing 1961-vintage building: • South Branch is built of concrete cinder blocks that do not contain rebar; it is unsafe in the event of a major earthquake. • South Branch is built on a concrete slab that doesn't allow underfloor wiring and that floods on one side of the building every time there’s a major rainstorm. • South Branch’s roof is not connected to the building structure. 

Despite these problems with the existing structure, the architects from Field-Paoli did preliminary designs to retrofit South and add a second story. What they and participants in the public workshops found was that working with the existing structure did not lead to nearly as high-quality and cost-effective a result as designing a completely new South Branch library. When this became apparent, the Library Board voted to build a new South Branch. 

Unlike South Branch, West Branch had been designated a "Structure of Merit" by the City. The designation, however, concerned an original building that had subsequently undergone extensive changes in the 1970s. The West Branch community found that preserving what remained of the original structure just wasn’t worth it when compared to the value of building a new, expanded library on the site. 

The Board of Library Trustees is to be commended for recognizing that the relatively low-income populations of South and West Berkeley are not adequately served by the existing branches. After considering alternatives, they found that new structures provided the best and most cost-effective way of delivering the exemplary library services that every Berkeley resident deserves. Warfield and his allies misguidedly believe that saving existing inefficient, unsafe buildings should always take precedence over library services needed by the public. 

It isn’t like the library management prefers to destroy old buildings: it enthusiastically renovated and expanded the Central Library and is planning to renovate and modestly expand the North and Claremont branches. (Note, however, that Warfield and his friends do not even accept those renovations and have appealed them to the City Council!) What the Library, and the Library Board, and the communities of both branches do prefer are safe, accessible, efficient, affordable, attractive branch libraries that can effectively serve their communities well into the twenty-first century. 

Most Berkeleyans respect that goal and want the BOLT and the Berkeley City Council to fight the CLU lawsuit, prevail over it, and build the new library branches.