Why Is New York City Planning to Sell and Shrink Its Libraries?

Defend our libraries, don't defund them. . . . . fund 'em, don't plunder 'em

Mayor Bloomberg defunded New York libraries at a time of increasing public use, population growth and increased city wealth, shrinking our library system to create real estate deals for wealthy real estate developers at a time of cutbacks in education and escalating disparities in opportunity. It’s an unjust and shortsighted plan that will ultimately hurt New York City’s economy and competitiveness.

It should NOT be adopted by those we have now elected to pursue better policies.

Saturday, November 3, 2018

Want To Know How To Vote On The Three City Charter Proposals on November 6th?: The answer is NO, NO. . . & MAYBE. .?- Covered in Noticing New York.

Do you want to know How to vote on the three City Charter Proposals on November 6th?   The answer (NO, NO. . . & MAYBE), is covered by Noticing New York (with huge indebtedness to MTOPP– The Movement To Protect The People–  and the  The New Yorkers For A Human-Scale City Alliance) in this article:
Noticing New York: How To Vote On The Three City Charter Reform (Reform?- Really?) Proposals on The November 6, 2018 Ballot! (NO, NO. . . & MAYBE. .?), Saturday, November 3, 2018.
Noticing New York includes some thoughts pertaining to libraries:
We have also seen the calculated re-composition of the [community] boards and their committees in advance to prepare for and ensure the vote results the real estate industry wants in instances such as the proposed sale of public libraries for real estate deals.  But does the institution of term limits ensure any improvement with respect to what needs to be fixed?: Only sometimes in some particular instances, and other times it can have the opposite result.

    * * *
What community boards and other New York City boards of influence (the Landmarks Commission, City Planning Commission, boards of the three city public library systems) might benefit from is diffusing the appointments to those boards among more elected officials who the public is likely to be able to identify and hold accountable when their interests don't get represented.   . . .
 
 If nothing else, more diffused power means that when moneyed interests want to put the fix in they have more elected officials to corral and buy off and it is harder for them to operate for long stretches in secret.  It is also likely to provoke a few more real open debates on a few more things before votes rather than discussions before votes being as scripted as they almost always are now.
The three proposals and the voting recommendations?
1.    On “Campaign Finance Reform- Reducing the amount of contributions to politician’s campaigns and increasing the amount of matching funds.”  VOTE NO.

2.    On “Creation of New Community Engagement Agency.”   VOTE NO.

3.    On “Term Limits on Community Boards.”  MAYBE VOTE YES (but THINK ABOUT IT!!- see . . . The Noticing New York article)

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