Dear Editor:
The Director of the Jersey City Public Library keeps changing the facts to suit her purpose. My Group believes that it was her intension all along to eliminate the Department of the Community Awareness Series (CAS). The library system she is “feverishly” trying to keep alive is a case of what reflects her personal interests and likes. The library must speak to the needs of all its patrons. Not just the ones that buy into the fallacy that the director’s word is gospel, especially since it has been clearly shown that her facts keep changing.
The director speaks of allocating monies to the departments of the library; well the CAS is a department in the library. She has said that the city council was holding up things and that the CAS needed a letter in writing stating that its projected budget for new fiscal year could be released and that was not so. She stated that two branch closings were due to the budget cuts and in fact they where do to increased rents, safety/health concerns and restoration issues. She said people may lose their jobs. We question her ability to be objective enough to say who should and shouldn’t retain their jobs. Face it, the director of the library is subjective and she manipulates the facts to serve her needs. If there is a regulatory agency (besides the library board) that looks at practices of city administrators we demand her record looked at and the staff and public interviewed. It is our opinion you will find a library director who misuses her position of authority and office.
The CAS is a service we have utilized at the library for many years. We demand that its very small operating budget be reinstated. People need an outlet for themselves and their families that can both inspirer them and offer a platform for intergenerational sharing to take place. Knowing the power of music, it is vital that people, in particular our youth, be exposed to American classical music. The library has long since passed the point that its sole purpose is only to provide written and electronic access. Cultural and social access is equally important. As a matter of fact if the director needs to be made aware of that then we question her ability to hold the position she is currently holding. We demand that Community Awareness Series department be allowed to continue its much needed cultural and social outreach the city and beyond.
Yvonne Hogan