A few weeks back residents were mailed a quality of life survey by the city of Pleasant Hill and today the results are in. One of the questions asked how important maintaining library hours and services were. According to the mailer 78% of residents said it was either a high or medium priority (although we don't know how much was high and how much was medium because the statistics display is not very good). Though 78% is very high, this came in 5th place behind safety issues, pot holes, and storm drains. I'm glad our priorities are in order.
Later on in the mailer, there is a section that describes how the city is addressing all of these issues. Disappointingly, when it comes to the library the city uses its tried and trusted cop-out line of, "Additional local funding is needed to keep the library open for the hours desired by the community." This cop-out of "additional funding" being needed is not given for any of the other areas of concern.
I'm not saying there aren't any economic problems in this city or state. I just question how what money we do have is being spent. Maybe we will maintain our beautiful parks, smooth roads, clear storm drains, have our library hours diminish to almost nothing and grow so ignorant that the Morlocks will fatten us up and feast on us every night (HG Well Time Machine).
What upsets me the most is that this excuse of no money will be perpetually used to defeat any library improvement initiative with no action plan to solve the problem every being discussed. The only solution is to vote out the city council the first chance we can.
Here are the members of the city council:
http://www.ci.pleasant-hill.ca.us/index.aspx?nid=64
Unless we get some more library improvement, please vote for whoever may be running against them whenever that election might be. Or better yet, maybe YOU should run against them!
