Archive: Opinions

Since my letter submission last Friday I've heard that I'm wrong, the Friends of the Lansing Library (FLCL) are correct about what happens should the library be abolished. Please read the following. Everyone who has (except the FLCL, who have an emotional attachment to the issue at hand) has told me, "You're right."

In a flyer circulated by the FLCL they claim that the library's 'assets are seized by the state for re-distribution to other public entities. This means our entire collection and all our equipment would be gone. The library would close. Lansing Community Library cannot return to its previous status as a volunteer-staffed and donation-funded organization.'

Re-read the first part of the proposition:  'Shall the Lansing Community Library Center be abolished as a Public Library under the Lansing Central School District?” The FLCL appear to have stopped reading after the word abolished. The part “Public Library under the Lansing Central School District C denotes the specific legal status of this library under NYS law. Passing this proposition would abolish this STATUS of the library. Should the proposition pass, there is NOTHING in NYS law requiring the library to immediately shut its doors, or to prevent it from returning to its previous status as a Reading Room of the Tompkins County Public Library.

Read NYS Education Law Sec. 268 yourself (copied at the bottom of this email).  You will see that the word “seize” is not used at all,  nothing is said about an abolished library being required to close its doors completely, and nothing is said about whether or not an abolished library can return to any previous status. The statement by the FLCL is FALSE.

The FLCL's claim that according to 268, the regents will seize all of their assets, the library building will be empty, and the library would have to start from scratch, is their INTERPRETATION of  what will happen. They claim (in a paper written and given to me by Donna Scott, “Library Closing Clarification and Some Statistics”) that they checked their facts with “officials from the New York State Department of Education and the Finger Lakes Library System.” With this library's current status under NYS law, the only fact-checker carrying any weight is the NYS library regents, the group with legal authority over this library. The regents were not cited as having verified20the FLCL 'facts.'

Interpretations from unnamed officials from NYS  Dept. of Ed., and the Finger Lakes Library System are irrelevant.

What actually would probably happen should the library be abolished?

First of all, no library has ever been abolished this way in NYS. There is no evidence that their claim of what will happen to the library will actually occur. NYS does not have 'library police.'

Should the library be abolished, moving vans will not show up the day after the vote to pack up the library. It would be weeks, if not months, before the state actually took steps to do anything with the library's assets. There is no law or “play book” for how to abolish a library, so the regents would do so carefully because of the precedent being set, ALMOST CERTAINLY WITH THE INVOLVEMENT AND RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE LANSING LIBRARY'S TRUSTEES.

Should the vote abolish the library, here's a realistic, and completely possible scenario: The library trustees contact the Tompkins County Public Library (TCPL), and arrange to return it to being a reading Room of the TCPL, the previous status of this library. The Lansing library is now part of TCPL, and the part in Sec. 268 of the law, “ its property shall be used first to return to the  regents, for the benefit of other free association or public or school libraries in that locality,” is satisfied because the reading room is in that locality. All of the assets stay right where they are.

From http://public.leginfo.state.ny.us/menugetf.cgi?COMMONQUERY=LAWS  :

'§ 268. Abolition. Any library established by public vote of any municipality or district, or by vote of the common council of any city, or by vote of the board of trustees of any village, or by action of school authorities, or by vote of the tribal  government of an Indian reservation, or under section two hundred
fifty-five of this chapter, may be abolished by majority vote at an election, or at a meeting of the electors duly held, provided that due public notice of the proposed action shall have been given, or by vote of such tribal government. If any such library is abolished, its property shall be used first to return to the regents, for the benefit of other free association or public or school libraries in that locality, the equivalent of such sums as it may have received from the state or from other sources as gifts for public use. After such return any remaining property may be used as directed in the vote abolishing the library, but if the entire library property does not exceed in value the amount of such gifts,  it may be transferred to the regents for public use, and the trustees shall thereupon be free from further responsibility. No abolition of a public library shall be lawful until the regents grant a certificate that its assets have been properly distributed and its abolition completed in accordance with law.'

From: John Schabowski

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