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| Chair of the committee, Jimmy Van Bramer, center |
The good news is that such a hearing was being held and that representatives from Citizens Defending Libraries and The Committee to Save the New York Public Libraries as well as others were able to testify at it. Were it not for the activities of CDL and CSNYPL calling attention to the sales and the many issues surrounding them the hearing might not have been held. The hearing also might not have been held had it not been for the fact that Assemblyman Micah Kellner, Chair of the state Assembly’s library committee, had preceded the City Council holding a powerful, headline-grabbing hearing on the subject of these sales back on June 27th. Assemblyman Kellner first indicated that he would hold hearings looking into these sales at a press conference event on the steps of City Hall with City Comptroller John Liu, Citizens Defending Libraries and The Committee to Save the New York Public Libraries and others on April 18, 2013.
The bad news is that, unlike the June 27th, 2013 Kellner Assembly hearing that delved probingly into the issues concerning library sales, the hearing run by City Councilman Van Bramer seemed designed as a belated effort to justify the currently proposed sales of libraries. At the Kellner hearing those conducting the hearing asked hard questions of the library officials promoting the sale of libraries and were openly skeptical about responses they received. (Assemblyman Kellner was one of the elected officials appearing to testify at the Monday September 30th Van Bramer hearing.) Mr. Van Bramer tossed soft ball questions that sounded like they had been worked out with the library officials in advance and was completely credulous when they responded. His opening statement was similarly supportively couched.
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| When tough questions were asked at Kellner hearing it generated headlines like this Times story- Not so with Van Bramer hearing |
Thankfully, Van Bramer (and co-chair Vincent Gentile) was not the only City Councilman there or who asked questions. City Council members Tish James and Steven Levin asked some hard questions and other elected officials critical of library came to testify as well. including assembly members Micah Kellner and Joan Millman, State Senator Velmanette Montgomery, and City Comptroller John Liu (Liu's representative stayed when Liu departed unable to stay for the duration.) The City Council hearing was the day before the Public Advocate runoff election and state senator Danial Squadron, a candidate, was not in evidence to follow through and act on his recently stated new stance about saving the libraries from sales.
In all, the hearing at 250 Broadway was well attended. The committee hearing room on the 16th floor was filled to capacity and the Sergeant at Arms reported that the overflow room was full as well. It was a good idea to arrive early. Here’s this report from CDL co-founder Michael D. D. White:
I skirted danger arriving later to get into the hearing than I thought wise because there was so much Citizens Defending Libraries testimony to finalize and print out that morning. There was already a substantial line at the security desk. While I was standing in line, Brooklyn Public Library president Linda Johnson showed up She addressed the BPL staff further ahead in line saying "I’m coming in with you guys" and joined them. At that point, my wife Carolyn McIntyre, another co-founder of CDL, walked in. I opened my bag and handed for her to look at, the final printed version of the testimony she would be delivering (and which she had not yet seen) saying under my breath that maybe she'd like to try the same sort of line-shark maneuver Ms. Johnson had just pulled and go in with me as we looked at that testimony. One of the security officers approached Carolyn and said, "Sorry Ma'm, but the end of line is over there." I informed him that Carolyn was with me and we were working together, but Carolyn was sent to where the end of the line had snaked way back. I told the officer that, if those were the rules that applied, Ms. Johnson (I pointed her out) had jumped the line ahead of us. The officer told Linda Johnson she had to go back. “But I’m testifying!” she said (as were we all). It also didn’t work for her to protest she was with other people.Manners were an issue during the course of the hearing. Mr. Van Bramer kept things fun and amusing, even as he kept things on course to support the sale of libraries, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t take time out to scold people about how he wanted them to behave.
As Johnson passed me by she scrunched up her face to proclaim to me that I had accomplished nothing since she’d still be getting into the room to testify just a few minutes after I did. Ms. Johnson then line-sharked again to join another group of people not far behind me (and way in front of Carolyn). Actually, my purpose was not as Ms. Johnson suspected, to delay her arrival in the room: I knew that once she was in the room she would be jumped up front to testify first and I also suspected that she’d get some special treatment from Mr. Van Bramer, as she did. My purpose was to administer a personality test to see how Ms. Johnson would react if she was asked to follow the same rules as everyone else, to see how gracious she might be. And the grade I’d give her for on that test. . . . . ?
At one point, Christian Zabriskie from Urban Librarians Unite, a group (formed in 2008) that favors the proposed sell-offs of libraries, was speaking with some accusatory petulance about the fact that certain unnamed parties think differently from his group and some of the largely differently-minded crowd in the room were sighing, grumbling and starting to giggle in audible disbelief. Among other things he seemed to be accusing Citizens Defending Libraries of not supporting adequate and baseline funding, something it has been seeking from the start. Van Bramer halted proceedings to admonish the crowd to show respect to Christian. (Van Bramer was probably not incorrect to do so, although demands that activists adhere tightly to the rules of those exercising power over them often generate debate.)
Mr. Zabriskie is a self-described library activist. At the hearing he said he was offering his opinions as a "library scientist." Mr. Van Bramer let Mr. Zabriskie‘s testimony in favor of selling off the libraries (preceding testimony from others of the general public) run off the clock. Library activists who testified later opposing library sales were limited to three minutes each. (Mr. Zabriskie's testimony, including the timeout for Mr. Van Bramer's 20-second admonition, ran six and a quarter minutes.)
Mr. Zabriskie left unspecified the names of the people he disagreed with. When Christabel Gough of the Society For the Preservation of Architecture spoke she was admonished for her bad manners by Mr. Van Bramer when she mentioned that BPL Library spokesperson Josh Nachowtiz had come from the mayor’s real estate development agency (just in time to promote the library real estate sales), a seemingly pertinent fact given how he has been in the forefront of these matters. Mr. Van Bramer said that Ms. Gough should not have mentioned Mr. Nachowitz's name since he was merely a staff person. He said, however, that naming politicians was fair game.
Is the concern here staff people? Perhaps Mr. Van Bramer would hope that opponents of the library sales would not personalize these discussions by talking about library trustees like class warrior Stephen A. Schwarzman, who goes on the Charlie Rose show to promote the sell-off of libraries that are part of the NYPL Central Library Plan and is also publicly and prominently in the media opposing taxes on the wealthy and his investment business.
Tish Slams Library Sell-Offs At Hearing. Squadron MIA
(Above, CDL YouTube video of Council Member Tish James asking questions at the hearing. The next day Ms. James won the runoff race race for the Democratic nomination for Public Advocate, 60% to 40%, against Mr. Squadron. Ms. James will now be in a position to ask many more good questions of officials running our public programs.)
Ms. Johnson might have been questioned about the reality of the “public involvement” she was lauding as she works to sell off libraries. The day of the hearing Citizens Defending Libraries submitted written testimony directly contradicting Ms. Johnson’s testimony respecting this at the hearing, but there wasn’t time for CDL to present the testimony orally. It appears below, directly following a transcript of Ms. Johnson’s words.
It is worth noting that the September 30th Van Bramer City Council hearing was just a few days after the September 25th NYPL (New York Public Library) Trustees hearing. At that hearing the “Central Library Plan” (CLP), was, without fanfare, for PR purposes, rechristened “The 42nd Street Library Renovation Plan.” Despite the rechristening, David Offensend, the NYPL Chief Operating Officer, said that day “It's the same plan.”
The trustees meeting at the Countee Cullen Library on 136th Street that day in Harlem was largely a distraction from the issue of selling off libraries, with much time spent reporting on the purported success of small-scale, not yet broadly implemented trial programs apparently discussed to show the NYPL’s interest in democracy, the common man and minorities. Really? When libraries are being sold off?
At Van Bramer’s hearing the subject race was subtly alluded to, accompanied by a playing of the race card the BPL has steadfastly been attempting to use. The code word used was “equity,” but the suggestion the BPL has been pushing is that those standing up against the sale of libraries are motivated by elitism and privilege. Citizens Defending Libraries submitted written testimony below about the attempted use of that divide-and-conquer strategy.
The lead-in testimony of Citizens Defending Libraries (below), which was too long to be read aloud by CDL co-founder Michael D. D. White in the three minutes allowed, was to the effect that, without investigations which the City Council should be conducting, the Council is basically in a position of de facto incompetence when it comes to properly administering and overseeing the provision of city capital funds to the libraries due to the pervasive lack of transparency on the part of library administration officials. The testimony cites nine examples of that lack of transparency.
Mr. White said there had been some discussion in preparing the testimony and that language in it that said it was "extremely problematic" that the plans for the sell-offs of these libraries involving hundreds of millions of public dollars has progressed this far and for so many years and have not yet been the subject of through scrutinizing reviews by the City Council, had originally said it was "absurd and disgraceful" that such hearings hadn't been conducted sooner. Mr. White said the more tempered language was substituted because of hope that in connection with the hearing Van Bramer could be won over to the side of opposing library sales, despite his office previously telling Citizens Defending Libraries he wouldn't do so. (Note that on September 10th there had been a Democratic primary election in which City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, the Democratic mayoral candidate supporting the sale of libraries- and most closely associated with similar Bloombergian developer hand-offs as well as Van Bramer's library positions- had been severely trounced.)
Mr. White noted the oddity that this first City Council hearing on the subject of library sales had managed to go on for two and half hours before the sale of the Donnell Library sale was mentioned. Assemblyman Micah Kellner, one of the first people opposing library sales allowed to testify, had brought up Donnell debacle, describing it as the canary in the coal mine.
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| Two and a half hours into the hearing public officials opposing the library sales get their chance to testify, including Assemblyman Kellner, the first to bring up the subject of Donnell, the "canary" in the coal mine. To the left Assembly member Joan Millman. To the left Senator Montgomery |
Mr. Van Bramer observed that he didn't agree with all Mr. White's statements. If there were some with which he agreed he didn't take the opportunity to say so. Citizens Defending Libraries previously found in its discussions that there is one point on which CDL and Van Bramer's office likely agree, a point that City Councilman Brad Lander is on the other side of. It is a point that Bard Lander beings up in connection with the statements he makes supporting the proposed library sales: Mr. Lander has expressed interest in consolidating the three library systems. Van Bramer's office has indicated they would not want the Queens system consolidated into the others, and would not let that happen. Consolidation of the systems would likely mean more mayoral control and a breaking of the Independence of the Queens system. Ergo, it would be likely soon thereafter to see a roll-out of the real estate sell-off strategies in which the other two systems are engaged?
Carolyn McIntyre testified shortly after and, diverging from her written testimony, showed Mr. Van Bramer enlarged pictures of library shelves empty of books from the following article: Saturday, September 14, 2013
Empty Bookshelves As Library Officials Formulate A New Vision of Libraries: A Vision Where The Real Estate Will Be Sold Off.
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| Above and below, Carolyn McIntyre holding up pictures of empty shelves |
Although the article was published two weeks earlier and has since been passed around by the public and in the library community, and although many of the pictures of the empty shelves were from July, Committee Chair Van Bramer seemed genuinely (if mildly) startled by the reality they depicted, library shelves cleared of books in order to sell real estate to developers.
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| Mid-Manhattan- Just one of the many pictures of empty shelves in the article- McIntyre picked just four |
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| Brooklyn Heights Library- Business and Career Section |
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| Brooklyn Heights Library- General Library Section |
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| 42nd Street Central Reference Library stacks emptied of books |
The following is Citizens Defending Libraries testimony.
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Testimony of CDL co-founder Michael D. D. White- City Council is unable to competently oversee capital expenditures for libraries given pervasive lack of transparency
September 30, 2013
James G. Van Bramer, Chair
Committee on Cultural Affairs,
Libraries and International Intergroup Relations
250 Broadway, Committee Rm 16th Fl
New York, NY 10017
Re: Agency Oversight Hearings on capital construction needs and the potential disposal of libraries in New York City
Dear Committee:
The profound lack of transparency with respect to the capital budgets for New York City libraries hampers and makes virtually impossible the City Council’s job of properly administering and overseeing the provision of city capital funds to the libraries, just as that lack of transparency is also a barrier to those others, private citizens and organizations, who might join with the city in providing funds to our New York City libraries to pay for capital expenditures that would benefit the public.
Here are examples of that lack of transparency:
• In June of 2007 the NYPL previewed and had blessed by the Bloomberg administration plans to sell and shrink New York City library space. Similarly, in the summer of 2007 Bloomberg administration officials were looking at equivalent plans involving library real estate in the Brooklyn system. Neither the City Council nor the public were advised of these plans. If any individual members of the City Council were so informed they did not pass that information along. Instead, in November 2007, the City Council was surprised by the sudden, secretively-handled, selling off the five-story Donnell Library at 53rd Street that netted only a fraction of the value that library represented to the public. That apparently served as the first test run for future such sales. Then the Bloomberg administration started cutting back on library funding. Without being able to view these ensuing Bloomberg administration’s cutbacks in the context of the planned sell-offs of library real estate (which the Bloomberg underfunding would be cited as justifying) the City Council and the public could not properly evaluate that underfunding or its motivation.In the end it is not merely a lack of transparency. In the end the pervasive lack of transparency must also raise questions about the priorities and motives of those who are not being transparent.
• A Request for Proposals has been issued by Bloomberg administration officials working with Brooklyn Public Library officials to sell The Brooklyn Heights Library. Ostensibly, that library, a significant and important capital asset for the public, is being sold and shrunk to raise dollars for the BPL’s capital budget. There is of course the problem that any sale proceeds would not go to the BPL, but to the city, because it is the city that owns the library. Setting that aside, there is a bigger problem that was not mentioned to the public or to the elected officials theoretically being informed about and overseeing the transaction: There is very little left to net any proceeds for the pubic because in 1986 most of the 10 FAR development rights were transferred out to Forest City Ratner. Even worse, analysis indicates that, if the library were sold, most of the benefit, perhaps even most of the sale proceeds, would be going to Forest City Ratner, not the public. And yet, in promoting this transaction library and city administration officials felt they could keep this information under wraps and out of the equation.
• The City Council and city are paying for major capital assets that should last for years even as those assets wind up being quickly and unexpectedly sold off. (Real estate assets are supposed to last at least 30 to 40 years.) We saw how SIBL, the new Science, Industry and Business Library, was paid for with $100 million that was intended to benefit the public, about half of that coming directly from the taxpayers, but more than 87% of SIBL was quietly sold off recently at what appears to be an appreciable loss, even as real estate prices in the Mid-town South neighborhood where it located with CUNY in the former Altman’s building, are going up substantially. Similarly, when the Donnell Library was suddenly sold for little money, publicly paid for recent renovations of about 20% of that building were prematurely scrapped.
• How can the City Council and those wanting to fund libraries make sensible decisions about where to invest these capital monies for the public benefit when plans to sell libraries are kept secretively kept under wraps until the last minute? The plan to sell the Brooklyn Heights Library was decided upon at least as far back as 2008, but it wasn’t publicly disclosed until 2013. How many years of capital funding had intervened?
• Just as library and Bloomberg administration officials have, by virtue of their secretiveness, raised questions about the trustworthiness of the way they furnish information, data furnished by these officials purporting to estimate capital costs is extremely suspect, apparently inflating to unbelievable numbers the cost of keeping and repairing real estate that administration officials want to hand off to developers. So, in the case of Donnell we find that 15% of that library had been recently renovated for $1 million (with perhaps 20% of the library having been recently renovated in all) including air conditioning, but library administration officials managed to estimate the remaining 80% of the building was in need of repairs that would come to $48 million. Really? Library administration officials love to cite outrageous air conditioning renovation needs whenever they want to sell a library. That’s the case in Brooklyn Heights Library where officials have gone through laughable gyrations to come up with an astronomical air conditioning repair figure, including deciding they will have to replace air conditioning that is currently working and will have to air condition a much greater amount of space than actually required.
• Capital dollars are supposed to pay for creation of buildings and space. But what is going on when colossal and extreme expenditures like the NYPL’s “Central Library Plan” (recently rechristened the “42nd Street Library Renovation Plan”) are paying for the shrinkage of space (and the handing off of real estate to developers). The last edition of the CLP, with expected overruns, may cost a half billion dollars, all money that is supposed to be going to benefit the public. It would be spent to pay for the reduction of more than 380,000 square feet down to 80,000 square feet of space. The NYPL does an obfuscatory dance to disguise the bottom line: Refusing to compare apples to apples, the NYPL `reasons’ that the shrunken space could be viewed as better space.
• Library administration officials seek capital dollars while leaving unexplained and unaccounted for how they have squandered (or perhaps worse) irreplaceable assets like Donnell in highly suspect transactions. NYPL officials are still refusing to answer questions about the Donnell transaction. Can the City Council consider that it is effectively overseeing the administration of the capital budget when those questions about the hundreds of millions of dollars of public benefit that were squandered remain unanswered and uninvestigated?
• The city is growing. It is a wealthier city than it has been before. The wisdom of selling libraries and shrinking library space at this time is highly questionable. The questionability of that wisdom cannot continue to go unaddressed when the city is providing the bulk of the library funds. Nevertheless, such things cannot be adequately addressed unless and until library administration officials have disclosed their complete city-wide ambitions in a comprehensive fashion enabling a proper economic impact analysis and City Council review. In the greater scheme of things, libraries cost little considering all the economic benefit they provide. There is also the civic benefit. As Walter Cronkite is often quoted: “Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation.”
• The lack of public review has been part of the overall lack of transparency and part of that must fall at the feet of the City Council. It is extremely problematic that the plans for the sell-offs of these libraries involving hundreds of millions of public dollars has progressed this far and for so many years and have not yet been the subject of through scrutinizing reviews by the City Council. This hearing should be just the first step of a much more thorough process.
Sincerely,
Michael D. D. White
Library sales are shocking and the shocks are only just coming to light
September 30, 2013
James G. Van Bramer, Chair
Committee on Cultural Affairs,
Libraries and International Intergroup Relations
250 Broadway, Committee Rm 16th Fl
New York, NY 10017
Re: Agency Oversight Hearings on capital construction needs and the potential disposal of libraries in New York City
Dear Committee:
People are shocked when they find out that library administration officials are selling libraries, shrinking the library system and that libraries are being deliberately underfunded to create real estate deals that benefit developers, not the public. Who would have thought that they would sell off the public libraries when usage is way up? How can the public defend itself against those who would think to do so?
The public is mostly still just finding out about these plans. Much of the plan to sell libraries is not yet fully unveiled or has been done so quietly that the public hasn’t yet found out about it. How many people know that most of the SIBL, the Science and Industry Business Library, built at a cost to the public of $100 million in 1996, has been sold for a mere $60.8 million? That sale, part of the consolidating shrinkage of the Central Library Plan involving three major Manhattan libraries (four if you count Donnell as you probably should) is only part of what’s happening overall.
Despite the public’s disapproval, the Brooklyn Public Library is plowing ahead with its plan to sell the Brooklyn Heights Library, closely replicating the unpopular sale-for-shrinkage of Manhattan’s Donnell library, which was closed for shrinkage in 2008 to be replaced by a 50-story building, a luxury hotel and condominiums. The Donnell sale netted the NYPL less than $39 million!
If you want to know what may be in store when plans like this are not transparent, direct your attention to what those plan-makers do first and what they can do when they do things in secret. Look at the top-down plotted Donnell sale, shrinking the library down to less than one third size (from 97,000 square feet to 28,000 square feet), where it will be mostly underground and sadly bookless, demolishing that five-story building that was recently the beneficiary of publicly paid for renovations. Fifteen percent of the building was the extensively renovated media center paid for by the city and state. In addition, there was the capacious and beautiful auditorium and the new Teen Center.
The same people who brought us Donnell say they consider it a model for what to do to other libraries in the future and are now in charge of the fire sale to sell Mid Manhattan and SIBL and destroy the research stacks of the fabled 42nd Street Central Reference Library. All of the Brooklyn Public Library’s real estate is up for “leveraging” in similar deals, including the Brooklyn Heights, and Pacific Libraries. They are selling the most valuable libraries first.
Libraries should represent the best of our democracy. To sell them off in deals benefitting a few at the expense of the many is democracy’s antithesis. We are starving our libraries out of existence, but keeping them would cost a relative pittance and reflect the public’s true priorities.
If we can’t stop the developer-driven sell-off of our libraries, we won’t be able to stop any transfers of public resources for private, not public, benefit.
Sincerely,
Citizens Defending Libraries
PS: As part of this testimony here we are supplying herewith a list with links of various articles Noticing New York articles about the sell-off of the city’s libraries including, how comparatively little value the public is getting for their sale, how disappointing and unlibrarylike the planed new libraries are, and how discriminatorily anti-democratic these sales are.
• Saturday, June 22, 2013, On Charlie Rose NYPL Trustee Stephen Schwarzman Confirms Suspicions: His $100 Million To The Library Was Linked To NYPL’s Real Estate PlansTestimony of CDL co-founder Carolyn McIntyre
• Saturday, June 15, 2013, SIBL, NYPL's Science, Industry and Business Library Sold At An Unreported Loss To The Public (And an Elucidating Sideways Look At The BAM South Library Real Estate Games)
• Friday, May 24, 2013, Previews Of The Proposed New Donnell Library: The NYPL Unveils Its Version Of The “Silk Purse” Libraries It Envisions For Our Future
• Monday, May 27, 2013, More Thoughts On Valuation And What The NYPL Should Have Received As Recompense For The Public When It Sold The Donnell Library
• Tuesday, May 14, 2013, A Consideration of Race, Equality, Opportunity and Democracy As NYC Libraries Are Sold And The Library System Shrunk And Deliberately Underfunded
• Saturday, July 13, 2013, Deceptive Representations By New York Public Library On Its Central Library Plan: We’re NOT Shrinking Library Space, We Are Making MORE Library Space!
• Saturday, September 14, 2013, Empty Bookshelves As Library Officials Formulate A New Vision of Libraries: A Vision Where The Real Estate Will Be Sold Off
• Friday, September 20, 2013, Forest City Ratner As The Development Gatekeeper (And Profit taker) Getting The Benefit As Brooklyn Heights Public Library Is Sold
• Thursday, March 7, 2013, Tossing Dwarfs?: It’s Time To Demand That We Change The Way We Fund Libraries . . End The False Political Theater
September 30, 2013
James G. Van Bramer, Chair
Committee on Cultural Affairs,
Libraries and International Intergroup Relations
250 Broadway, Committee Rm 16th Fl
New York, NY 10017
Re: Agency Oversight Hearings on capital construction needs and the potential disposal of libraries in New York City
Dear Committee:
I am here today to shine a light on what is happening to our public libraries. I appreciate that this City Council Committee is providing this opportunity for those of us who love libraries and respect the place they have in our democracy. I am not a librarian, a hedge fund manager or a real estate developer. I am a therapist and a concerned citizen who could not watch these sacred spaces continue to be exploited and the librarians devalued.
I became aware of the attempts to close and sell my library, the Brooklyn Heights Library, in January at a community meeting at the library. Our branch is a very well used and loved branch. It is the most well used branch apart from the main library in Brooklyn because of its location and staff. The library sits right where all the major subway lines converge and where multiple bus lines stop. The Brooklyn Heights Library draws about a half million people a year from all over Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Bronx. No other library is accessible by so many subway and bus lines.
At the meeting BPL spokesman, Josh Nachowitz, said they were going to sell the building to a private developer, let him tear it down and build a high-rise that would house a much smaller library, about 1/4 the size. He also said they would remove the Business and Career services. We were stunned and told him it was a bad idea.
I might have walked away doing nothing about the news except that I found out from a study by the Center For An Urban Future that use of libraries has gone up 40% and circulations up 59%. More people want to learn than ever. The report says the users are teens, seniors, immigrants, freelancers, job seekers, nannies and parents with young kids.
This report says that funding has gone down about 30% since Bloomberg started his third term. I heard from library staff that they have had to cut over 1,000 positions. They have provided an increasingly used service with decreasing staff! We owe them our gratitude.
I began asking people coming into the Brooklyn Heights Library why they use it. Just like in the report: Teens find it’s safe, they can be with friends while their parents are at work, nannies congregate with kids, parents come for the art programs and story time, business owners get help growing their business, job seekers get help with their resumes, now people are coming to get help with doing taxes.
I met a woman named Celeste who started a baking business using the Business and Career Services library. She came to research on different ways of baking and she entered a contest for small businesses which offers cash prizes. Her two sons were with her and I asked them why they come. They said to check out books and DVDs and it’s a quiet place to do homework. I talked with lots of seniors and retirees who come almost every day.
There is a line a block long outside this branch when it opens at 10:00 AM. Inside the library there is a giant sign that says “the line starts here.” It‘s to use the computers. They want to close and shrink this branch? It makes no sense.
I started a petition a week after the meeting to stop the public policy of defunding libraries in order to sell the real estate to private developers. We now have about 14,000 signatures, mostly online, and you can easily find Citizens Defending Libraries on the web.
Since starting the petition it has become increasingly clear that a corporate-style takeover of the NYPL and the BPL leadership is being followed by the selling of significant library system assets, rushing to do this before the end of Bloomberg's term in spite of growing public opposition. Nothing they are doing makes sense in terms of what is best for the library or the public, but makes total sense in creating lucrative real estate deals for private investment companies and developers in real estate.
The new corporatist leadership under individuals hailing from Wall Street, Steven Schwartzman and David Offensend, may conceive of themselves as “leveraging” the real estate. New highly paid groups called “strategy groups” concentrate their time on pursuing real estate deals while librarians who have always done the real work of the libraries are being eliminated and replaced with lower-paid clerical staff.
Does this pattern sound familiar? Aren't we also seeing this happen to our schools, hospitals, and parks? This exploitation of public resources at the end of Bloomberg's term benefitting the one-percent while reducing resources and opportunities for the rest of society sends the message that a few count for everything and the rest count for practically nothing. If this exploitation and plundering is not stopped we stand to lose much more than real estate; we stand to lose all that made our democracy great. After taking all that they can that our ancestors and generous donors gave, what will be left?
We are either moving towards a more caring society or away from a caring society. Citizens Defending Libraries is demanding better from our elected and library administration officials. We need to affirm that all New Yorkers are worthy and deserving of these important public services.
Thank you for listening.
Sincerely,
Citizens Defending Libraries
Which Libraries Are In Danger? Might Yours Be Next? Library Officials Divide-and-Conquer Strategy
September 30, 2013
James G. Van Bramer, Chair
Committee on Cultural Affairs,
Libraries and International Intergroup Relations
250 Broadway, Committee Rm 16th Fl
New York, NY 10017
Re: Agency Oversight Hearings on capital construction needs and the potential disposal of libraries in New York City
Dear Committee:
The question arises from the public: Which New York City libraries are at risk from the current program of selling off and shrinking libraries as real estate deals?
We need library administration officials to disclose the entirety of their sell-off plans to the public and there needs to be an independent economic impact analysis of their plans.
As of now all the City's libraries are adversely affected due to the underfunding of all the libraries, which makes them vulnerable to be sold off.
Because decisions about the selling of libraries are made in secret, it means that every New Yorker needs to wonder if his or her library is next on the list. Is it just Donnell, the Science and Industry Business Library, Mid-Manhattan, 42nd Street's Central Reference Library at Fifth Avenue, the Brooklyn Heights library incorporating Brooklyn's Business and Career Library and the historic Carnegie Pacific Branch that will be subject to sales and these significant shrinkages? How did those libraries end up on the chopping block? There was no public discussion. There was no oversight from the City Council. What is being decided behind closed doors impacts all our neighborhood and city-wide libraries.
It appears to be by design that the library administration wants to keep us in the dark about their plans. In true divide-and-conquer fashion library administration officials don't want you to know whether your library or another library that you care about will be next on the chopping block. The strategic plan for the Brooklyn Public Library in their own words says that the plan is to “leverage” (a fancy word for “sell”) all of the real estate. The BPL: “will leverage its over one million square feet of real estate by launching partnerships . . .” When the NYPL unveiled its system-wide real estate plans in March of 2008 which states a goal of having “fewer service points” to provide “better service to users” it envisions making changes in Northern Manhattan and Staten Island. In other words, they want to consolidate the libraries. This is the antithesis of the concept of the neighborhood library allowing for easy accessibility for all citizens to libraries.
In reality, anybody's library might not be too far down the list, but library officials rather you did not know if it is. One woman, while leafleting outside and canvassing against library sales was called inside by library administration officials to specifically tell her that her library was not being looked at for sale. This was contrary to what the real estate press said. In response, library officials told her that was just a developer with whom they had no connection taking initiative on their own. Nevertheless, that particular library was included in a list of libraries that at least one developer was given to look at for development in the summer of 2007.
Evidence shows that library administration officials don't tell the public which libraries they are looking at to sell until the very last minute as was seen with Donnell, Brooklyn Heights and the Pacific Branch.
In what looks like a divide-and-conquer strategy, one community is told that their own community library could receive money if someone else's library is sold, little caring about the accuracy of such representations. Residents of Dyker Heights are told (article: Library Vital to Immigrants Squeezed by City Budget, by: Norman Oder, June 18, 2013) that their McKinley Park branch could be renovated (implying it won't be sold) if libraries (like the Pacific Branch) in “gentrifying” neighborhoods are sold, and while residents of Fort Greene are told that proceeds from selling Pacific Street will partially pay for outfitting a new BAM South library. The truth is that the money received from the library sell-offs must go to the city general funds and there is no way to assure any funds will go to any of the libraries.
The library administration officials have publicly said their intent is to sell off the most valuable real estate first. But what is most valuable to a real estate developer is probably also the most valuable and irreplaceable to the public for much of the same reasons. It means that this looting of the system stands to do a lot of damage swiftly and up front. Once an asset is sold there is no reversing the damage it has done. Once the administration views the selling off of these assets as a success, they will continue to work their way down the list.
Because uncertainty of the future of a library's existence creates an unstable environment for the staff and the patrons of that library, it is imperative that the library administrators reveal to the public their short and long term plans for library restructuring. Exposing library sales in a piecemeal way prevents any oversight body and the public from analyzing in a comprehensive way the impact on all city residents of the end game of these sell-off plans.
Libraries are one of the most profound instruments of Democracy. We see these library reductions and shrinkages as part of the consistent erosion of all people's access to information and knowledge. These decisions are in the hands of a few men and women of great wealth and power who lack comprehension of the importance of neighborhood and other libraries. They have undisputed ties to the real estate industry. Their motives, based on their actions, are clearly not in the interest of the everyday man, woman and child.
Sincerely,
Citizens Defending Libraries
How Much Are Libraries Being Downsized and Library System Assets Shrunk?
September 30, 2013
James G. Van Bramer, Chair
Committee on Cultural Affairs,
Libraries and International Intergroup Relations
250 Broadway, Committee Rm 16th Fl
New York, NY 10017
Re: Agency Oversight Hearings on capital construction needs and the potential disposal of libraries in New York City
Dear Committee:
With Donnell, the Central Library Plan and every library sell-off plan the details of which have actually seen the light of day, including the Brooklyn Heights library, there has been a consistent and substantial diminishment of the publicly owned assets (usually by 2/3rds to 3/4ths) with no benefit to the public while others are benefitting in nontransparent top-down concocted deals that, like Donnell, benefit connected players in the real estate industry.
• Donnell Library: Reduction of public library space by more than two-thirds (from 97,000 square feet to 28,000 square feet- NY Times figures, though by other calculation it is more extreme). A library worth perhaps $120 million to the public in terms of continued ownership (based on recent transactions) is sold to net $39 million!The proponents of these shrinking libraries will never refer to them as smaller. They will call them “state-of-the-art” and quibble, speaking about the spaces in terms other than apples-to-apples comparisons referring to `found space,’ `equivalent space’ and `flexible space,’ but the fact of the matter is that space will always have its value and publicly owned space is publicly owned space and publicly owned assets are publicly owned assets.
• Central Library Plan: Reduction of public library space by more than two-thirds or about three-quarters (from more than 380,000 square feet down to 80,000 square feet- That’s the 139,000 sq/ft Mid-Manhattan plus the 160,000 sq/ft SIBL plus the 80,000 sq/ft of stacks being destroyed. In the very recent past, before the real estate guys took over administering the libraries, it was proposed to nearly double Mid-Manhattan’s space, increasing it by 117,000 square feet for more library services). The cost of this more than 380,000 square foot shrinkage is $350 million or more. It is not paid for by the real estate sales because they bring in less than that amount (Marx referred to bringing in $300 million at least a $50 million loss). Another cost to the public?: Most of the recently built $100 million SIBL has been sold off for $60.8 million. Instead, the shrinkage is justified because it is asserted by Marx and the NYPL that a smaller library (with fewer librarians) might cost $15 million a year less to run. Most savings of this sort involve personnel cost reductions, not brick and mortar. (The libraries being destroyed are not just physical assets.)
• Brooklyn Heights Library: Reduction of public library space by more than two-thirds (from 62,000 square feet to 15,000 or maybe now 20,000 square feet). Cost benefit to the public this time? Not out yet, but it’s supposed to be a “partnership” arrangement rather than a request for bids arrangement and likely with Forest City Ratner with a record of abusing those relationships. (The no-bid arrangement for the BAM South library to "replace" the historic Pacific branch- hearings were Tuesday morning- started out as an RFP to build a "parking garage" which through partnership has become something extravagantly different and more generous for the developer.)
Sincerely,
Citizens Defending Libraries
Is The Downsizing of Libraries a "Right-sizing" or Possibly a Wrong-Sizing?
September 30, 2013
James G. Van Bramer, Chair
Committee on Cultural Affairs,
Libraries and International Intergroup Relations
250 Broadway, Committee Rm 16th Fl
New York, NY 10017
Re: Agency Oversight Hearings on capital construction needs and the potential disposal of libraries in New York City
Dear Committee:
We are downsizing our libraries with these deals that turn libraries into real estate sales. Despite increasing library use we see substantial reductions with library space decreased to as little as one-third or less its previous size. Are we right-sizing the system? Have we really thought about what size our libraries should be, whether or how much they should actually be shrunk rather than grown and expanded?
Doesn’t it seem to be entirely too odd a coincidence that in the New York Public Library’s Central Library Plan it is estimated (calculated?) that ALL the library space of the libraries the NYPL has decided to sell, the 300,000 square feet of SIBL and Mid-Manhattan combined will just happen to fit (they say) in the 80,000 square feet of space where that plan proposes to eliminate the research stacks of the 42nd Street Central Reference Library? Is it really a coincidence or was the NYPL in doing these `calculations’ just working backward from the real estate it wants to sell? It appears so because when Citizens Defending Libraries met with NYPL Chief Operating Officer David Offsensend, Mr. Offsensend said that they do not yet have information about how many books they want to keep in the library when they finish planning.
What if this calculation of the space needed is wrong? Mr. Offensend said that if the space calculations of the Central Library Plan are wrong there is no way to expand and correct the space afterward. In addition, if there is a need for growth or expansion in the future there is no way to accommodate it with additional space in the future.
The previous plan for the Mid-Manhattan library, a recent one, in existence just ten years ago, was an expansion plan, an almost doubling of space, adding 117,000 square feet to the existing 139,000 square feet. Similarly recent plans for the Brooklyn Public Library existing within that same time frame (even a little bit more recently), called for a substantial addition of space with a new 150,000 square feet of library across from the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
If it was just so recently that we were increasing and expanding library space aren’t we now making a big mistake by shrinking space as drastically as with the Central Library Plan, which takes 380,000 square feet of library space shrinking it down to squeeze it in 80,000 square feet with no possibility of expansion afterward?
Sincerely,
Citizens Defending Libraries
We Need A "Cooling Off" Period, A Moratorium On Real Estate Sales: A Look At Alleged Repair Costs That Look Suspiciously Inflated
September 30, 2013
James G. Van Bramer, Chair
Committee on Cultural Affairs,
Libraries and International Intergroup Relations
250 Broadway, Committee Rm 16th Fl
New York, NY 10017
Re: Agency Oversight Hearings on capital construction needs and the potential disposal of libraries in New York City
Dear Committee:
We are here to say yet again we need a “cooling off” period. . .
. . . We need a moratorium on the selling off of the library system’s best and most valuable assets until more is known about the questionable reasons being given for why the best real estate needs to be sold off to developers.
We need a “cooling off” period because every time they want to sell libraries, often recently renovated ones, they seem to find an insurmountable problem with the library’s air conditioning system. It’s highly suspicious!
Whenever library officials want to push a library out the door as a real estate deal they find air conditioning problems a handy complaint.
• The reason Donnell Library needed to be closed, sold and shrunk? An air conditioning problem! To sell a whole library? At a considerable loss to the public because the NYPL netted less than $39 million for the 97,000 square foot library? By way of reference, much of that library had been recently renovated, the auditorium, the Teen Center, and in November of 2001 a new 14,500 sq ft state-of-the-art media center paid for by the City and State of New York. That complete and extensive renovation included new air conditioning for about 15% of Donnell’s space. It cost $1 million. While that much of the building had been so recently renovated for so little (and other recent renovations of more space were in place) the NYPL provided cover for the announcement its announcement of Donnell’s sale in 2007 estimating that renovation of the rest of the building would cost $48 million!Highly suspicious. We need an audit!
• Why demolish the historic research book stack system at the Tilden Astor Central Reference Library at 42nd Street? According to the NYPL. . . An air conditioning problem!
• Need to sell off and shrink the Brooklyn Heights branch and Business and Career library? According to the BPL . . . .An air conditioning problem!
• Sell the historic Pacific Branch? An air conditioning problem! Want to sell off a lot of libraries in Brooklyn? Announce that a lot of them have air conditioning problems and start closing them in the summer! See: More libraries fall as heat nears 100 degrees, By Mary Frost, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 6, 2012.
The Brooklyn Public Library announced that it wanted to sell the Brooklyn Heights Library because of the condition of the air conditioning this January but the plan and decision to sell the library go back to at least 2008. The air conditioning breakdown that `couldn’t be fixed’ didn’t occur until summer, 2012, right in time to announce the library’s sale to the public.
Although the public was told that the air conditioning was the reason to sell the library in January of 2013, library administration and city officials withheld information about exactly what was supposedly wrong with the air conditioning until mid-June, days before an RFP (Request For Proposals) to sell the library (because of the “air conditioning”!) was sent out. The withheld information finally released was simply a July 12, 2012 DDC Construction Report but even then the requested cost estimates that had been cited in the press all along were still withheld. When these documents were requested from the Brooklyn Public Library they referred our representatives over to DDC (New York City Department of Design and Construction) and when the DDC was requested to give up these documents they referred our representatives back over to the BPL. To date they haven’t been produced.
In substitution therefor the BPL has produced another in a series of escalating estimates of the cost of repairing the air conditioning. A repair that was once estimated to cost $700,000 or substantially less went to $750,000 and from there to $3 million, then to $3.5 million. The official estimate has now recently escalated to between $4.5 and $5 million (and is apparently at odds with previous engineering assessments). You know that they are reaching to find costs because both the architect delivering the estimate and Brooklyn Public Library spokesperson are saying that one of the hard-to-meet challenges in fixing the system is all the heat that modern-day computers are throwing off. These modern-day computers are also being blamed by the BPL for making the library too expensive to repair in another way: It would be far too expensive to supply them with the electricity they need!
Further, the most recent estimate, disingenuous on its face, calls for fixing air conditioning that isn’t broken and for air conditioning more space than actually required.
We need an audit and we need a “cooling off” period until that audit is completed and the mind-set of library and city officials is no longer one that prioritizes creating real estate deals for developers! Remember: These breakdowns accompanied by inflated repair estimates only came after the decision to the sell the library.
Sincerely,
Citizens Defending Libraries
The Problem of Offering `Credible' Assurance That Money Given To The Libraries Will Be Properly Used
September 30, 2013
James G. Van Bramer, Chair
Committee on Cultural Affairs,
Libraries and International Intergroup Relations
250 Broadway, Committee Rm 16th Fl
New York, NY 10017
Re: Agency Oversight Hearings on capital construction needs and the potential disposal of libraries in New York City
Dear Committee:
Many of us have given money to the libraries intending to see our donations benefit the system. Citizens Defending Libraries has also called for more taxpayer money for the libraries, an end to underfunding at a time of substantially increasing library use and city growth.
Unfortunately, giving to support the libraries has now become a perplexing problem for donors in more ways than one.
At City Council Budget hearings on Monday, June 3rd of this year Anthony W. Marx and Linda Johnson, the respective heads of the New York Public Library and the Brooklyn Public Library, testified that they had a problem approaching donors asking that they give monies to fund the libraries because they cannot make a `credible’ case that any money given to the libraries by such donors will not be immediately subtracted out by the Mayor of New York in budget cuts. Indeed, nearly everyone seems to acknowledge the harm of the annual city budget dance around library funding and how it involves cynical gamesmanship.
There is another significant problem in approaching potential donors to the NYPL and BPL that Marx and Johnson did not talk about but which is just as significant, probably much more so: The library heads cannot make a `credible’ case that generous gifts given to the libraries by generous public-spirited donors will not be subtracted out in the form of real estate deals that squander or plunder generous gifts given to the libraries.
John D. Rockefeller gave the land at 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenue, across from the Museum of Modern Art for the building of the Donnell Library. Ezekiel Donnell paid for the building of the five-story library 97,000 square foot building there. Over the years many other others donated to further improve that library, funds that included the investment of taxpayer dollars for state-of-the-art facilities. Did Rockefeller, Donnell or any of us suspect that the assets bequeathed the public would be virtually given away netting less than a mere $39 million, less than two-thirds of what the 7,381 square foot penthouse in the 50-story building replacing Donnell is being marketed for?
Similarly, the Central Library Plan involves a careless and very expensive discard of public space and assets, probably a net financial loss for the NYPL, a gross reduction of more than 380,000 square feet of library space squeezed down into only 80,000 square feet counting the elimination of the 42nd Street Reference Library’s research stacks. SIBL, completed in 1996 for $100 million, has been quietly, and nearly entirely (87%), sold off for $60.8 million. The BPL is now following suit with similar plans of sell-offs for real estate deals.
What then became of our donations and public expenditures? Those giving money to the libraries, whether regularly in the past or those wanting to in the future are loath to see our gifts squandered and thus made meaningless. In addition to donated funds, much of what is being squandering or plundered came from the taxpayers. There needs to be accountability to assure that all these monies will be used as, and in the spirit of, what was intended. There should be investigation, and new and better assurances are in order.
Sincerely,
Citizens Defending Libraries
Problematic Mind-Set of Library Trustees
September 30, 2013
James G. Van Bramer, Chair
Committee on Cultural Affairs,
Libraries and International Intergroup Relations
250 Broadway, Committee Rm 16th Fl
New York, NY 10017
Re: Agency Oversight Hearings on capital construction needs and the potential disposal of libraries in New York City
Dear Committee:
We need to investigate. We as taxpayers pay the lion's share of the library budgets but the libraries are run by trustees with a mind-set we cannot trust.
Brooklyn Public Library CEO Linda Johnson said that Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein is her idea of an ideal board member for her library system board. That is indicative of a terrible mind-set on her part.
Mr. Blankfein is exactly the kind of board member one could expect to get behind real estate deals that shrink libraries while craftily conferring more benefits upon the wealthy and connected. Mr. Blankfein’s Goldman Sachs took advantage of special relationships and maneuvering to procure unique real estate benefits, design overrides and subsidies for its new corporate headquarters in Battery Park City. It was written about in the New York Times. Mr. Blankfein is also a proponent of the notion that the public needs to lower its expectations about entitlements that he firmly says “they're not going to get.”
What better candidate to help plunder the libraries’ public real estate assets for the benefit of a wealthy few?
At the same time, the biggest real estate sell-off and shrinkage of Manhattan’s main libraries (the Donnell library and the three premier libraries more formally a part of the NYPL “Central Library Plan”) is unfolding, Stephen A. Schwarzman is on the board of the NYPL pushing such deals for the real estate industry? Why?
Mr. Schwarzman is the Blackstone Group. That’s one of the biggest real estate companies around. If you were watching PBS in June, Charlie Rose was helping Mr. Schwarzman with a lot of boasts about Blackstone:
Rose: . . . it is now the world's largest alternative investment firm with over $200 billion under management.Schwarzman runs seven lines of business under Blackstone generating huge possibilities for conflicts of interest, including hedge funds. Hedge funds are notorious these days for making a lot of money. Schwarzman says his private equity business is bigger:
* * * *
Rose: I think you're the largest real estate investor in the world, aren't you?
Schwarzman: That's true. (Nodding)
* * * *
Schwarzman: We are the largest investors in the world in hedge funds.
Schwarzman: … Private equity is a bigger business… The rates on return on private equity tend to be much higher.At the same time that Mr. Schwarzman is apparently making lots of money at Blackstone, a fair amount connected to real estate, the New York Public library seems to be transacting a series of real estate deals like Donnell, SIBL and the Central Library Plan that are very bad for the public.
Is Mr. Schwarzman interested in the public’s benefit or his own? Mr. Schwarzman apparently considers himself to be part of a societal class war, and believes that if the uneven playing field advantages that favor the .01 percent at the expense of the rest of us are jeopardized by, for instance, a proposal to eliminate the carried-interest loophole (which allows executives at firms like Blackstone to pay only 15 percent taxes on much of their income), that it’s an intolerable setback. He declared: “It's a war; it's like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939.”
Did Mr. Schwarzman’s consider that his name was being put on a boondoggle when it was put on the Tilden Astor Central Reference Library at 42nd Street which will be destroyed as a reference library under the Central Library Plan shrinkage and sell-off plan. He told Charlie Rose when he transferred $100 million to effect the name change that he knew those plans and how the money would be spent.
We need an investigation. We need an audit. We cannot trust trustees who think with such a different mid-set to guard our precious publicly paid for library assets.
Sincerely,
Citizens Defending Libraries
Library Officials Keeping Librarians Quiet. What About?: Getting Rid Of Books And Policies Of Shrinkage That Don't Make Sense
September 30, 2013
James G. Van Bramer, Chair
Committee on Cultural Affairs,
Libraries and International Intergroup Relations
250 Broadway, Committee Rm 16th Fl
New York, NY 10017
Re: Agency Oversight Hearings on capital construction needs and the potential disposal of libraries in New York City
Dear Committee:
Library administration officials don’t want to hear what librarians have to say. They also don’t want the public to hear what librarians have to say.
Did you know that:
• In 2009 the NYPL started having departing librarians sign “nondisparagement agreements.” They were written about in the New York Times where one departing librarian refusing to take money to sign the agreement referred to it as “hush money.” (See: New York Times: Employees Feel Silenced on Library Project, by Robin Pogrebin, May 23, 2012.) Many librarians are being fired these days so that, with their leaving the oral history of what we have historically intended our libraries to be is also leaving.What is it that library administration officials are concerned librarians might be communicating about were they not thus silenced and intimidated? Librarians could be telling the public about:
• Library administration officials have pursued librarians still working at the libraries, seeking to have them sign similar documents (loyalty oaths).
• NYPL administration officials ended the ROAR program, a program where retired librarians could come back and work (without benefits) on an hourly basis at a reduced cost to the system.
• Whatever reason officials might give for ending the ROAR, fewer former librarians are present in the library environment, and officials have now gone a step further by banning former librarians from volunteering at the libraries, something any other member of the public is free to do.
• The number of librarians that have been laid off and fired is at an all time high.
• In addition, there has been a huge amount of shifting librarians around between libraries. Such shifting can limit the ability of librarians to know about their libraries and can be used as a tool to stifle criticism. {What was it that now allows libraries of a certain status to be transferred to the Bronx- that they are no longer union?)
• Librarians haven been transferred and/or encouraged to retire not because of their own opposition to what is being done at the libraries (like the sale of Donnell and elimination of books), but because staff working for them have expressed dissatisfaction with some of these sorts of things.
• Librarians have been told not to discuss or give out information about library “renovations.”
• Libraries now run by “site managers” (a real estate sounding description) rather than “head librarians.”
• Programs of book removal and shrinkage. Did you know that NYPL librarians have been given directives from senior officials:If librarians could talk, they could tell the public what it might want to know about the way libraries should be. It should be against public policy to silence librarians and they shouldn’t be abused for exercising their free speech rights in this of all environments! Aren’t libraries where we are supposed to be able to go for knowledge and truth?
• That bookshelves should always be less than 50% full.• Books are being thrown out in middle of night
• That shelves should never have more than two copies of the same book. Not even Hamlet!
• That books that are “shabby” in appearance should be thrown out? So-called “shabby” looking books just might be limited edition or out-of-print books
• Librarians might tell people how very well used and popular libraries being closed down or shrunk like Donnell were.
• Librarians might have something to say about what it means to send books away to less accessible off-site locations.
• Librarians might notice and point out when valuable assets at the library go missing? Did you know:
• Bibliographies representing years of work by librarians intended to be ready to assist the public are being thrown out?
• The New York Times donated a substantial portion of its morgue to the NYPL? It organized research in a way modern day computers don’t duplicate. It was once kept in the Annex? Does anyone know where it is now and that it wasn’t thrown away?
Sincerely,
Citizens Defending Libraries
The Lack of Reality Concerning The “Public Involvement” Library Officials Tout
 |
| BPL President Linda Johnson who got to extol the quality of `public involvement' in the sell-off of the Brooklyn Heights Library when asked a softball question that sounded prearranged |
BPL President Linda Johnson: The most imminent project that we are working on is the Brooklyn Heights Library and we’ve been very open about our plans from the first steps. And we’ve established a community action committee which meets regularly that is comprised of members of community organizations as well as representatives of elected representatives and representatives themselves and this idea really is to get a sense from the community about what the library should be, how it should function, how it should play a role in the community, and ultimately, when we get there, what the library should look like.September 30, 2013
James G. Van Bramer, Chair
Committee on Cultural Affairs,
Libraries and International Intergroup Relations
250 Broadway, Committee Rm 16th Fl
New York, NY 10017
Re: Agency Oversight Hearings on capital construction needs and the potential disposal of libraries in New York City
Dear Committee:
The public process for selling off New York City libraries, such as it exists, is confusing, deceptive and intentionally frustrating to those wishing to, in any way oppose, or question the wisdom of, selling off libraries, shrinking them, or underfunding them as a prelude to such sell-offs.
For instance:
• You hear alternately from those such as Brooklyn Public Library Spokesperson Josh Nachowitz or the Friends of the Brooklyn Heights Branch Library that:Libraries are far too important to society to so trivialize and manipulate the attention that must be paid if and when a library is ever proposed to be sold.
• The sale of the Brooklyn Heights Library is a “done deal” so that it is futile to oppose it, andIndeed, it is discouraging to hear that the decision to sell the library was made way back, at least as far back as 2008 but that long-held secret decision is not to be the subject of public review or criticism until years later.
• There will be a process in which the public can oppose the sale of the library in the future so it is not appropriate or worthwhile to oppose that sale at this time.
• Meanwhile, those such as Josh Nachowitz and the Friends group conduct what purports to be a form of public process, convening something called the “Community Advisory Committee” (CAC). It is called the “Community Advisory Committee” although it is chaired by Mr. Nachowitz and Deborah Hallen of the Friends Group, who has circulated guidance she apparently considers her group bound by that says the so-called “Friends” group cannot do anything except support the BPL in its goals completely and totally. In what way can the “Friends” group ever hope to represent the community if it cannot oppose the BPL in any way: can’t oppose the sale, can’t oppose the shrinkage, can’t demand a bigger temporary library, can’t request longer hours, can’t even request that the new library have a book drop? Additionally insulting to the public: The other group appointed to represent it as the CAC was originally constituted was the Brooklyn Heights Association, which was informing us, “the Brooklyn Heights Association is simply supporting the position of the librarians and the Friends of the Library.”
• It was clearly indicated to Citizens Defending Libraries in discussions we had on the subject that those setting up the CAC and designing its operations, including the Brooklyn Borough President’s office, considered it inappropriate for Citizens Defending Libraries to be represented on the CAC, despite its much more significant community support (the fast-falling membership of the Friends group was below 200), because Citizens Defending Libraries opposed the sale and shrinkage of the library. In other words, the very limited and circumscribed purpose of the CAC was to support the procession toward a contract with a developer for sale and shrinkage of the library before the end of the Bloomberg administration.
Sincerely,
Citizens Defending Libraries
Investigation of AstroTurf, Impropriety of Using Public Funds To Create Appearance of Support For Real Estate Development Projects
September 30, 2013
James G. Van Bramer, Chair
Committee on Cultural Affairs,
Libraries and International Intergroup Relations
250 Broadway, Committee Rm 16th Fl
New York, NY 10017
Re: Agency Oversight Hearings on capital construction needs and the potential disposal of libraries in New York City
Dear Committee:
Did you know the State Attorney General’s office is right now making headlines with what is referred to as its “AstroTurf War,” its “Operation Clean Turf,” wherein that office is investigating and combating companies that fraudulently represent the consumer community by writing fake positive reviews for the products of companies that pay them to do so. The AG may have, in this regard, slightly expanded the original definition of AstroTurf which refers to fake grassroots organizations that pretend to represent the community, but AstroTurf groups are a truly a significant problem. That said, the public ought to investigate and assess the extent to which different groups supporting the sale of libraries partake of the characteristics of AstroTurf.
Should AstroTurf activities be considered illegal, be investigated and prosecuted? The Attorney General has in the past acted against New York City development agencies like the Economic Development Corporation for illegally flowing taxpayer money into lobbying activities and public-hearing-support activities through groups like Local Development Corporations. When library administration officials transform their organizations into real estate operations and then flow the taxpayer money they receive out to AstroTurf activity, is it really a very different thing? No matter what, it is an undesirable use of taxpayer money that should be stopped.
These matter are something to which the City Council needs to direct its attention and investigate. When the Council does it will find that it is happening.
Sincerely,
Citizens Defending Libraries
Coincidences? The Mayor's Deliberate Underfunding of Libraries The NYPL's Selling Of Libraries And The BPL's Selling Of Libraries Are All Unfolding Synchronously?
September 30, 2013
James G. Van Bramer, Chair
Committee on Cultural Affairs,
Libraries and International Intergroup Relations
250 Broadway, Committee Rm 16th Fl
New York, NY 10017
Re: Agency Oversight Hearings on capital construction needs and the potential disposal of libraries in New York City
Dear Committee:
Are we dealing with coincidences or are we dealing with planned and coordinated actions? There are those who would like to excuse the Bloomberg administration’s deliberate, extreme underfunding of New York City’s libraries and deem it not to be associated with the currently proposed sell-offs of the city libraries that are consequently short on funds, saying that it must, instead, be a coincidence that the two are happening at the same time.
Is it a coincidence that the New York Public Library and the Brooklyn Public Library are both selling off and shrinking libraries at the same time? That both the NYPL and the BPL started planing these sales at the same time and are now both pressing such deals forward, rushing them along at the end of the Bloomberg administration? Is it a coincidence that the current extreme underfunding of city libraries began as the plans for these real estate sell-offs got underway?
According to the NYPL’s Chief Operating Officer, David Offensend, the NYPL began looking at doing its Central Library Plan in 2006 or perhaps as early as 2005. The NYPL had the sell-off and shrinkage plans previewed and blessed by the Bloomberg administration in June of 2007. The BPL was having real estate developers look at multiple city-owned properties for development at least as early as the summer of 2007. In the fall of 2007 the NYPL suddenly announced that Donnell Library had been sold. Even if the public hadn’t been told there must have been a little planning of this in advance! Similarly, although the public was also not told, the BPL decided as of 2008 that evicting the Business and Career Library from its Downtown Brooklyn home in the Brooklyn Heights Library would allow that library to be sold and shrunk like Donnell.
Mayor Bloomberg, a candidate for a third term, attended the March 11, 2008 press conference where the NYPL announced plans that would entail changes to its real estate holdings although listening to the public relations statements of the time one would have had to be psychic (or a student of the Donnell debacle) to realize that what was being talked about was a shrinkage of the system and a shedding of valuable assets for far less than their value. Thereupon, the reelected Bloomberg promptly starved the libraries, each year cutting their funding back more.
Coincidences? We don’t think so. And they ought not to be treated as such.
Sincerely,
Citizens Defending Libraries
The Top-Down Plotted Library Sell-offs, Lack Transparency and Accountability
September 30, 2013
James G. Van Bramer, Chair
Committee on Cultural Affairs,
Libraries and International Intergroup Relations
250 Broadway, Committee Rm 16th Fl
New York, NY 10017
Re: Agency Oversight Hearings on capital construction needs and the potential disposal of libraries in New York City
Dear Committee:
As a new Center For An Urban Future report on library funding and usage points out, the “libraries depend on the city for the lion's share of their budgets” but “they are technically independent 501(c)(3) entities, not government agencies.” The anomalous result is that while we as taxpayers are funding the library system those running the system are busy selling off its assets, crown jewels first, without accountability or transparency, in deals that create enormous private benefit for the elite of this city.
This was pointed out in 2008 in an editorial by the editor-in-chief of Library Journal after the sale of the Donnell library. That library, now only a construction site, was sold after recent, expensive, city and state-funded renovations, with the intention of shrinking it down to less than one-third size, a library that will now be mostly underground and sadly bookless. Those who got the real estate are putting up a high-end hotel and luxury condominiums.
There were all sorts of questions about the location of some of the collections with the breakup of the collections diminishing the role of Donnell as a central library. The decisions were communicated to staff (and in the case of Donnell, to the public) almost entirely after the big decisions have been made.
It was wrong for the New York Public Library, a public/private entity funded mostly by the taxpayers, to blithely sidestep public and staff input with respect to Donnell and now library trustees are doing it again as libraries throughout the system are being put on the chopping block. Look at the Central Library Plan in Manhattan. Look at what is going on in Brooklyn where a BPL “strategic plan” puts every piece of the system’s real estate into play.
When Donnell was sold the City Council’s Libraries Subcommittee chair didn't know about the Donnell sale ahead of time even though he said it was “troubling” in terms of “the whole mission of the library.”
Now Donnell and that lack of transparency and that lack of accountability is being used as a model everywhere in the city. Taxpayers fund the libraries and these plans need to be audited and brought into the daylight.
Sincerely,
Citizens Defending Libraries
Testimony of Donald Christensen Evaluating Real Estate Interest Issues Affecting Central Library Plan Partly In the Light of Previously Respected Trustee and Public Policy
September 30, 2013
James G. Van Bramer, Chair
Committee on Cultural Affairs,
Libraries and International Intergroup Relations
250 Broadway, Committee Rm 16th Fl
New York, NY 10017
Re: Agency Oversight Hearings on capital construction needs and the potential disposal of libraries in New York City
Dear Committee:
Thursday, June 27, 2013, Assembly Member Micah Kellner, Chair of the Committee on Libraries and Education Technology, held a public hearing at 250 Broadway in Manhattan on the sale of New York City library buildings to private developers. Donald Christensen, a professional researcher delivered startling testimony at that hearing. It is highly relevant to this hearing, but Mr. Christensen contacted us to let us know he could not be here today.
Accordingly, we are submitting that testimony on his behalf in the form it appeared, republished in full, in the attached Noticing New York article: Tuesday, July 2, 2013, Startling Testimony at State Assembly Hearing on NYC Library Sales. His testimony is also viewable at the New York State Assembly site and on YouTube the link to it being available in that Noticing New York article.
Sincerely,
Citizens Defending Libraries
Lack of Public Benefit From Proposed Brooklyn Heights Sale Because of Previous Transfer of Development Rights To Forest City Ratner
September 30, 2013
James G. Van Bramer, Chair
Committee on Cultural Affairs,
Libraries and International Intergroup Relations
250 Broadway, Committee Rm 16th Fl
New York, NY 10017
Re: Agency Oversight Hearings on capital construction needs and the potential disposal of libraries in New York City
Dear Committee:
A Request for Proposals has been issued by Bloomberg administration officials working with Brooklyn Public Library officials to sell The Brooklyn Heights Library.
Ostensibly, that library, a significant and important capital asset for the public, is being sold and shrunk to raise dollars for the BPL’s capital budget. There is of course the problem that any sale proceeds would not go to the BPL, but to the city, because it is the city that owns the library. Setting that aside, there is a bigger problem that was not mentioned to the public or to the elected officials theoretically being informed about and overseeing the transaction: There is very little left to net any proceeds for the pubic because in 1986 most of the 10 FAR development rights were transferred out to Forest City Ratner. Even worse, analysis indicates that, if the library were sold, most of the benefit, perhaps even most of the sale proceeds, would be going to Forest City Ratner, not the public.
And yet, in promoting this transaction library and city administration officials felt they could keep this information under wraps and out of the equation.
The attached Noticing New York article covers this topic in more detail than three minutes of testimony can: Friday, September 20, 2013, Forest City Ratner As The Development Gatekeeper (And Profit taker) Getting The Benefit As Brooklyn Heights Public Library Is Sold.
Sincerely,
Citizens Defending Libraries
Another Privatization Of Publicly Owned Property and Public Realm Associated With Digitizing Public Collections
September 30, 2013
James G. Van Bramer, Chair
Committee on Cultural Affairs,
Libraries and International Intergroup Relations
250 Broadway, Committee Rm 16th Fl
New York, NY 10017
Re: Agency Oversight Hearings on capital construction needs and the potential disposal of libraries in New York City
Dear Committee:
While many of us are well aware that these proposed library sell-offs represent real estate deals that privatize publicly-owned assets there is another associated concern about privatization that should not be overlooked. Library officials talking about getting rid of books are at the same time discussing digitizing and relying on digital content sometime in the future even if their plans are not yet ready for prime time).
But we must be wary that there are many who see the digitized future in terms of an increasingly privatized future where corporations pushing for various plans expect to make a lot of money
by controlling digitized information, in many cases, by charging the public for what's already owned by the public in public collections that are being put out of reach.
Many consider that this was the principal motivation behind the sickening 1995 hollowing-out of the San Francisco Public Library collections, which was underwritten with big-ticket contributions from telecoms and Silicon Valley.
Digital activist Aaron Swartz warned about this disturbing trend:
The world’s entire scientific ... heritage ... is increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of private corporations....The Open Access Movement has fought valiantly to ensure that scientists do not sign their copyrights away but instead ensure their work is published on the Internet, under terms that allow anyone to access it.In the future we may expect that after the libraries have contracted out to privatize content we will be charged exorbitantly high fees for what was once publicly owned. The further irony in all of this is that much of the transcription and other work to create digitally available content may have been crowd sourced so that the public will be charged for what it once freely owned and for the result of its own freely contributed work product and intensive labor creating privatized content.
Sincerely,
Citizens Defending Libraries
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