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HomeMy WebLinkAbout06-19-2023-BLT-PUBLIC COMMENTS June 19, 2023, BLT Agenda Comments These comments on Newport Beach Board of Library Trustees (BLT) agenda items are submitted by: Jim Mosher (jimmosher@yahoo.com ), 2210 Private Road, Newport Beach 92660 (949-548-6229) Item 1. Minutes of the May 15, 2023 Board of Library Trustees Meeting Suggested corrections: The passages shown in italics below are from the draft minutes with suggested corrections indicated in strikeout underline format. Page 2 (page 6 of agenda packet), Item 2: “Chair Watkins noted that Mr. Mosher had noted that the Huntington Beach Library is closer and has an active seed lending program.” Page 2 (page 6 of agenda packet), Item 4, paragraph 2, sentence 1: “Chair Watkins stated that at 83.3% through the Fiscal Year (FY) they are under budget by about 7%, and 83.3% through the Fiscal Year (FY).” [As drafted, the sentence could easily be read as saying the Library is 7% under budget for some current period and 83.3% under budget through the year to date. The suggested revision would avoid that misreading without altering the intended meaning] Page 2 (page 6 of agenda packet), last sentence: “Motion made by Secretary Coulter, seconded by Trustee Kumra, and carried (5-0-0-0) to approve the Consent Calendar with edits to the minutes of the Board of Library Trustees meeting Minutes on of April 17, 2023.” Page 3 (page 7 of agenda packet), Item 6, paragraph 1, sentence 1: “Library Services Director Melissa Hartson directed the Board to Handwritten Pages handwritten pages 27 and Page 28 for the Budget breakdown.” [There is also an extraneous comma before the end of the last sentence of this paragraph.] Page 3 (page 7 of agenda packet), Item 6, paragraph 3: [comment: I believe the minutes are accurate. However, I also believe “Internal Service Funds” has a more general meaning than was said. I believe the term is used to flag a department’s budgeted expenses that are paid not to an external entity, but to another City department. For example, all department budgets, including that for Library Services, show an IT Internal Service Fund expense. It reimburses the expenses, for salaries and benefits as well as goods, budgeted under the Information Technology function within the City Manager’s Office. ISF charges are listed so the budget will accurately reflect the total amount being expended to support the functions of each department, but since the same expense is listed twice (once as expense under the department providing the good or service and once under the department receiving it) flagging it as an ISF charge to be paid by the receiving department as reimbursement to the providing department is used to ensure it will not be counted twice in totaling the expenses the City as a whole will have to cover in the budget year.] Page 3 (page 7 of agenda packet), last paragraph, sentence 1: “Library Services Director Hartson explained that the Library is indeed having fewer patrons through the doors; however, library services have truly evolved, and what constitutes personal touches now extends beyond people walking into the Library.” [?] Page 4 (page 8 of agenda packet), first line: “there are now telephone reference services, email reference services, and offsite outreach services.” [add comma] June 19, 2023, Library Trustees agenda comments from Jim Mosher Page 2 of 5 Item 7. Children in the Library Policy (NBPL 4) The suggested simplifications of the existing policy seem useful to me. Additionally: 1. One thing neither the existing nor revised policy clearly defines is exactly who it applies to; that is, who the Library regards as “children” (or, by exclusion, who are regarded as “adults”). Based on the associated Circulation Policy (NBPL 12), does the Board set the limit at “under 18” (the age range in which parental consent is required to obtain a library card)? If so, it might want to modify paragraph 2 of the suggested clean copy on handwritten page 37 to read something like: “For purposes of this policy, “children” are any patrons under the age of eighteen, and the term “disruptive behavior” refers to the creation of loud and unreasonable noise, running, jumping, climbing, fighting, or other behavior that could interfere with the rights or safety of other patrons.” 2. I would also suggest the first sentence of sub-policy 1 be revised to read: “Children under the age of twelve may not be left alone unattended in the Library for any reason.” First, this would improve consistency with the use of “unattended” in the following sentence and it would avoid confusion with reading “alone” as meaning the policy is only a prohibition against leaving a child as the only person in the building. Second, it would counter the complaint of the parents who spoke at the City Council on June 13, complaining NBPL librarians were exposing their very young children to “age inappropriate” (and, in their view, “pornographic”) materials. Had those parents been “attending” to their young children, as the policy requires, it would have been their responsibility, not the librarians, to control what their children were looking at. 3. If the latter is a concern, the Board might also consider adding a statement somewhere in the policy to the effect that parents are responsible not only for their children’s safety and behavior, but also for the materials they are exposed to. 4. Sub-policy 2 ends by saying “As with any violation of Library Use Policy (NBPL 1), the police may be contacted in response to non-compliance.” I am unable to find anything in NBPL 1 referring to circumstances under which library policies would be enforced by the police. It refers only to enforcement by Library staff, with the ultimate penalty being a request to leave the building, possibly accompanied by a suspension of privileges. Should the circumstances under which the police may be called be added to NBPL 1? Would it be only when staff suspects the violation of a law for which an arrest could be made? June 19, 2023, Library Trustees agenda comments from Jim Mosher Page 3 of 5 Item 8. Budget Amendments for Fiscal Year 2022-23) The most obvious question to ask about this item is: what was the source of the $24,852 addition to the Library Materials line item listed under “AMOUNT ADDED – OTHER”? After the $200,000 from the Friends and the $47,801 contribution for literacy from the California State Library, this is the largest revision. Was the $24,852 an accumulation of small gifts? Or did it include a large one that should, perhaps, be reacknowledged? Beyond that, perhaps because I am not an accountant, the details of the City’s budget, how it is arrived at, and how it is used, presents an endless maze of puzzles to me. As Item 6 at its May 15 meeting, the Board “approved” the City Manager’s proposed FY 2023- 24 Library Services Budget, as Section 701 of our City Charter requires it to do (“(c) Consider the annual budget for library purposes during the process of its preparation and make recommendations with respect thereto to the City Council and City Manager”) – although to be sure, I think that Item 6 was the BLT’s recommendation to the City Council (having at an earlier meeting reviewed staff’s recommendations to the City Manager), and I don’t think the City Council was either told or asked what the BLT’s recommendation was. What the Board saw on May 15 was only the “operating” part of the Library budget. It did not include the Library’s projected capital expenditure needs, even though the Charter provides no exemption from BLT review of that (which I don’t think the BLT has ever seen or made a recommendation about). As I also tried to point out on May 15, the operating budget the BLT recommended approval of was a very high level summary of a more detailed budget presented by the City Manager to the Council. That Budget Detail book, which is posted for online review and at least temporarily available in hardcopy at the library’s reference desks, broke down the detailed anticipated operating costs attributed to each library branch, as well as shared administrative, technical processing and literacy program costs. Even then, it is not clear that document is “the” budget or simply a printout at some level of a still more detailed electronic budget. For the present purpose, one of the many puzzles is the Budget Detail book presented to the Council, and the City’s Finance Committee, contains a column labeled “2023 Revised Budget.” The “original” line item amounts generally, but not always, appear to agree with the numbers quoted in the present agenda item. Among the few differences as to “original” amounts, the present Attachment A shows “$5,000” originally budgeted for “Programming,” the Budget Detail shows $5,500 on page 131; Attachment A shows an originally budgeted “$18,278” for “Literacy – Benefits” while the Budget Detail book shows $26,146 on page 140. But the “revised budget” amounts rarely agree. For example, Attachment A shows revised Literacy Salaries of $83,107 while the Budget Detail book shows $86,723. More importantly, while page 131 of the Budget Detail shows the “Library Materials” line item going from an original $669,740 to a revised $694,323, page 138 lists additional revised expenses in that category attributed to the Foundation ($43,337) and Friends ($301,063). I June 19, 2023, Library Trustees agenda comments from Jim Mosher Page 4 of 5 assume those would be expenses anticipated to be covered by donations from those organizations rather than expenses expected to be paid to them. They bring the revised total budget for library materials to $1,014,140 rather than the $874,592 shown in the present Attachment A. Likewise, page 138 of the Budget Detail book shows revisions to the originally budgeted $5,500 for “programming.” It shows an added $55 from the Foundation, $100,906 from the Friends and $11,665 from “Designated Gifts,” which would give a revised total of $118,126 for FY23 “programming” compared to the $30,000 shown in Attachment A. Page 138 also shows budget revisions in line item categories not mentioned at all in the present Attachment A. Those include “Special Dept Supplies NOC” ($39,201), “Training” ($134), “Publications & Dues NOC” ($1,273), New PC Purchases ($4,807), “Software License New” ($654), “Office Furniture/Fixtures” ($962), “Maint Comp Hardware” ($2,509) and “Office Equipment” ($3,772) – in all (including Materials and Programming) an increase of $510,339 over the originally approved budget on that one page alone. There were also substantial revisions to the originally approved salaries and benefits, and small changes in some other line items, so that according to page 43 of the Budget Detail, the overall FY23 Library budget (including Cultural & Arts) went from an adopted $9,432,008 to a revised $10,413,751 – an increase of $981,743 compared to the $336,181 mentioned in the Abstract to the current staff report (from page 140, Cultural & Arts accounted for $11,121 of the increase). Some (or all?) of these differences might be explained by the note at the end of the staff report saying that in addition to not including the budget for the Cultural Arts division, the numbers given do not “include donated funds or encumbrances rolled over from the previous year.” It may also have something to do with the revisions reported in the Budget Book (posted in May) being as of a different date from the revisions reported in the current staff report (posted in June). However, exactly how the differing numbers can be reconciled is not obvious, at least to me. Item VII. PUBLIC COMMENTS ON NON-AGENDA ITEMS As noted above, at the June 13 City Council meeting, a number of public speakers objected to books in the children’s collection at the Mariners Branch, including children’s (unsupervised?) access to them during Mariners School hours. Trustees can review the video of their complaints here and here. In addition to the question of how to respond to their concerns, this raises questions that I don’t recall being addressed, at least not in recent years, at the annual Mariners Branch updates about how the joint use arrangement with the school works. Does the school librarian have some say over collection development? How does that interact with the City Library’s role in this? And what control does the Board of Library Trustees have over the school’s use? It might be worth reviewing the agreement. June 19, 2023, Library Trustees agenda comments from Jim Mosher Page 5 of 5 As to how to deal with the complaints, I would certainly not want to see books removed simply because some people object to them. Nor would I want to stifle children’s curiosity, or make them feel some knowledge is forbidden to them. One possibility would be to add stickers to the book spines warning patrons of content that might be found offensive for specific reasons. But the list of things that might offend different people is so nearly limitless that the variety of stickers needed would be unmanageable. As suggested above, a better solution would seem to be reminding all parents they are responsible for their own children’s upbringing (and no one else’s).