December 2nd Council Meeting, Public Hearing
Over ninety people signed to speak at the December 2nd Public Hearing on the 2010 Operating Budget. The Bloedal Conservatory and the Petting Zoo folks were out in force. They jiggled placards on 12th Avenue alongside traffic, garnering support from honking cars. Inder and I were spouted paeans of praise about library service with a bullhorn. Shades of Grandeur on Georgia. It was no less lively inside, with hundreds of supporters encouraging the speakers.
Please make sure you bring your granny and friends to December 9th Council Meeting, Part 2. Craig Nelson, Kathy Juszko and Jacob Breen and Gloria Hershorn are slated to speak. Think of attention-getting slogans and pump up your vocal chords. About twelve speakers out of ninety spoke on December 2nd.
Five Library workers signed to speak at the Public Hearing, Council Meeting, December 2, 2009. Stuart MacKinnon, Parks Board representative to Library, and Joan Andersen, Library Board Chair. spoke eloquently about the importance of libraries to our culturally diverse communities. We all recommended no cuts as the value of library service is demonstrated every day. in myriad ways. in fact, Joan and I seemed to be reading from the same page so I brought the value of specific studies to the Councilors attention. I said that we should not consider cuts until a Social Return on Investment had been brought forward and evaluated. We have never had a specifically designed SROI on Vancouver Public Library and we need that kind of information before we make cuts to vital library service. This … read your email.
in solidarity,
Alex