Was Library Administration Officials’ Campaign For Restoration of Library Funding Done With Great Fanfare A Victory? No. Was It Even A Great Campaign? No.

Caption to this "We Did It" photo sent by the NYPL: "You asked them to Invest in Libraries-and they did! Pictured, from left to right: Libraries Sub-Committee Chair Costa Constantinides, Finance Committee Chair Julissa Ferreras, Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, and Majority Leader Jimmy Van Bramer"-  And what "did" they do?

There had been so much fanfare about it all and then, late Monday night, June 22, 2015, the public got news on the results of one of the most major campaigns for restoration of library funding that anyone can remember.  The campaign NYC Library administration officials ran, aimed at the de Blasio administration, was for restoration of progressive annual cuts implemented by the Bloomberg administration going back to 2008.  Was the campaign a success?: It was announced that libraries would receive an additional approximately $40 million* "for all branches operating within the five boroughs" over what had been in the "the mayor's office original plan to significantly cut library funding in next year's budget.". . .  Was the campaign even a good one?

Sadly, the answer to both these questions is NO!

(* Introductory background note on the figures:  Perhaps it's indicative of just how casually a few paltry million is thought of in the scheme of things, but the restoration of funds was variously reported and discussed as being in the amount of $39 million, and alternatively, without explanation, in the amount of $43 million.  Initially, the New York Times reported the restoration amount to be $39 million on June 22, 2015.  Similarly, $39 million is what was discussed as the figure from budget negotiators on June 24, 2015 on the Brian Lehrer show.  A City Council press release announcing the restored funds on June 26, 2015 oscillates, stating the restored figure to keep branches open as $39 million in one place, and $43 million in another.  Ultimately, library PR started consistently using the $43 million, which my discussions with the NYC Independent Budget Office indicate is probably the correct number.  A recent New York Times article by Ginia Bellafante that sought to convey with emphasis that libraries that might be sold off have gotten a lot of money recently stated the figure to be $46 million, but that was probably a typo or a miscommunication between Ms. Bellafante and the library administration spokespeople she was communicating with. . . . However, dirty little secret, the actual increase to funding this 2016 funding year over the prior funding year is just $35 million, the statement of the greater $43 million figure is because de Balsio was actually proposing to cut funding from the previous year's level.)

It Hasn't Been Reported, But A Confused Public Needs To Know. . . 

These questions were asked of me by a reporter in connection with an article that might have been written.  Time has passed and that article has yet to be written so I think it's time to write it myself.  Full disclosure: The reporter contacted me because I an a co-founder of Citizens Defending Libraries, an organization that has been fighting for adequate funding for New York City Libraries, one reason being that we don't want underfunding of our city's heavily used libraries to be used as an excuse to sell them off.

Based on what has been written and appeared in the news media to date, the public would be pretty confused about what happened, including being confused by the fact the campaign was declared a victory and the PR pushed out by by library administration officials PR that has led to goofy, misleading statements like this one in the Times: "The city’s 2016 budget includes the largest increase in operating and capital funding for libraries in the city’s history."

In reality, failing to get a restoration of the Bloomberg cuts they identified, library administration officials got $22 million less funding for libraries from Mayor de Blasio on the operating side than they asked for and they should have been asking for even more money overall.  The Bloomberg administration's intentional deferral of capital expenditures for the libraries has not been adequately addressed so that needed repairs for libraries will not be made and this lack of funding will be cited as a reason to sell off significant library assets at bargain basement prices.

Is it truly fair to say library administration officials ran an ineffective campaign for the restoration of library funding? How could it be that when, with the campaign that they ran, every major New York City daily editorialized that proper funding to the city's libraries should be restored: The New York Times, the New York Post, the Daily News, The Observer, AM New York (as a key tool to narrow the city's income gap), and the Staten Island Advance?  Good points were made by all getting important messages out.  For instance, the Times editorial cited its columnist Jim Dwyer who had pointed out that in the last 8 years at least $620 million has been spent on just three sports arenas, (the Ratner/Prokhorov "Barclays" arena included) and that this amount was 1.37 times the amount spent on libraries serving seven times as many users.

Said the New York Times editorial while citing that Dwyer piece:

Mr. de Blasio leads a city where the corporate and entertainment infrastructure are seldom neglected. Citi Field, Yankee Stadium and the Barclays Center, to name just three, are beneficiaries of hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer funds . .  while schools and libraries languish.

The reason it is fair to say that the campaign was actually not the campaign that it needed to be is that the big picture of what went on is that the fight for more library funding was fundamentally flawed: It was hamstrung by starting out not asking for enough, asking essentially only for a compromise . . .  Worse: The campaign did not clearly state what was at stake.  Doing so would have been important to rally the public.  . .    When your starting position is to ask for what is only a weak compromise what you are likely to get, and what we got, was a compromise on that requested compromise.

Libraries have always had to fight for funding, but we used to fight for funding to enlarge our libraries as we were doing through to the end of the Giuliani administration and before him under Dinkins.  Now the money we need is so that there isn't an excuse to sell off in our libraries in a weird program of self-cannibalizing funding that sacrifices and drastically reduces our overall assets, selling libraries like Donnell, the 34th Street Science, Industry and Business Library (SIBL) and Brooklyn Heights for a fraction of their value.

Libraries are one of the top priorities of the public.  They cost the merest fraction of the budget to fund.  Usage is way up.  They supplement what we spend on schools and more than pay for themselves economically although their real value in terms of democracy, society and culture is fuller than that.

The public absolutely does not want libraries underfunded and the public certainly does not want to face the doomsday scenario that libraries are so underfunded that the public will be told that unrepaired libraries need to be sold off and shrunk.  The funding campaign waged by the library administration officials did not ask for the amount of money we need so there will be no excuse to sell off libraries like SIBL or the Brooklyn Heights central destination library in Downtown Brooklyn.  The library administration officials' campaign did not tell the public that without proper funding we would be selling our libraries.  Any real threat like this should've been trumpeted!  It wasn't and most of the public still aren't aware libraries are threatened by such sales.

Why did library administration officials hold back and not make the case for funding sufficient so that libraries won't be sold?:  These very same library administration officials are pushing these real estate deals, which are, in fact, juicy handouts to developers.  This amounts to a perverse incentive to underfund libraries. .

. . .  The current level of underfunding began after Bloomberg secured his third term and as plans to sell and shrink libraries, citing underfunding as an excuse, were launched.

Listen To Young Adult Fiction Writer Judy Blume
 
The following was from an April 25, 2015 “Invest In Libraries” campaign email, “Are you there Mr. Mayor? It's Me, Judy Blume,” sent out by the Libraries. .  In this case, for purposes of the email, the words were put in the mouth of author Judy Blume asking New Yorkers to sign a letter to Mayor de Blasio asking for more funding (emphasis supplied):

Librarians are the protectors of intellectual freedom. They are the defenders of books and imagination and thought. They are on the front lines, working every day to improve literacy, to close the digital divide, and to spark creativity in everyone who walks through their doors.

Despite this role, NYC libraries have been cut $65 million in annual operating funds since 2008. They are down hours and about 1,000 staff members. If that funding was restored to the City's three library systems, the total budget for public libraries would be less than half of one percent of the total City budget. Seems like a no-brainer to me.

Take a moment. Literally just about 30 seconds. Tell Mayor de Blasio and the City Council that our libraries are worth more.

Additionally, library buildings themselves are not up to par. The City's 217 branches need $1.4 billion worth of maintenance and renovations over 10 years. They leak. They are overcrowded. They don't have enough outlets. Really? This is not acceptable.

There's nothing to disagree with here.  And it's eloquent.  But where is the mention that without proper funding major libraries, significant capital assets will be sold?

Next, notice that the Blume email observes that since 2008 (when Bloomberg was launching library sales plans) library operating funding has been cut $65 million.  Wouldn't you imagine that anything less than a restoration of those requested $65 million in funds would be a defeat?  One would think so, but although the revised budget de Blasio agreed to restored significantly less everyone involved in the ineffective campaign was willing to proclaim victory as if the public wouldn't notice the still missing funds.  And the public, being told that a victory had been achieved might, indeed neglect to remember the figures in the Judy Blume email.

Declarations of Victory- Really?

Here is a June 30, 2015 email (Subject: "Subject: Major Victory for NYC Libraries!") from the NYC Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito declaring a victory in the library funding campaign fight:

In case you missed the good news, this past week the New York City Council adopted a balanced, fiscally responsible budget for Fiscal Year 2016  that includes $43 million in funding for our city's libraries.  

With this funding, branches across all three library systems – the Brooklyn Public Library,  the Queens Library,  and the New York Public Library (which serves Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island) – will be able to stay open six days a week!

We also successfully persuaded the Mayor to commit to a $300 million 10-year capital plan to help maintain and revitalize these vital institutions.

Our thanks to you and everyone else who helped make these important victories possible!

Here is a similar June 24, 2015 email declaration of victory sent out by Brooklyn Public Library president Linda E. Johnson:

Dear Library Supporter,

This is a great week for Brooklyn Public Library.

On Monday, we learned that Mayor de Blasio and the New York City Council have reached an agreement to increase funding for public libraries in the City’s budget.

Here from NYPL President Tony Marx’s June 30, 2015 “Big win for NYC's libraries” (alternately to others it went to the same day “The big news, and a big thank you”) with a huge “We Did It!” banner:

 New Yorkers spoke out. And City leaders listened.

We're thrilled to report that the Mayor and the City Council announced their agreement on the budget: The City will increase libraries' operating budget by $43 million. We'll also see a significant increase in the budget for taking care of our aging buildings.

This is the largest single increase of operating funds in our history and will allow for 6-day service across the city, plus more books, programs, and increased research library services.

    * * * *

We are so grateful to Mayor de Blasio, City Council Speaker Mark-Viverito, Council Finance Chair Ferreras, Majority Leader and Cultural Affairs Chair Van Bramer, Sub-Committee on Libraries Chair Constantinides, incoming Libraries Chair Andy King, and all the members of the Council for this historic increase, which provides great momentum for the future.

    * * * *

We at the Library have been honored to have been a part of this campaign, which showcased the best of New York.

"We Did It!"  Did What?

The banner said “We Did It!”   Whether that's true all depends on what your definition of "It" is.

If "It" means that New York City libraries will continue to be underfunded, then they did "It."

If "It" means that New York City library administration officials will proclaim that library funding is now at a level so low that libraries need to sold and shrunk as a result, then they did "It."

If "It" means that all of the above can be true ans still let library administration officials, the New York City Council and the mayor proclaim this "the largest single increase of operating funds in our history," then they did "It."

This is the "It" that these officials apparently think means that they can tell the world they ran a great campaign even while libraries are underfunded and in jeopardy of sale, a sort of sweet spot where they probably expect much of the public will be lulled into thinking there is no longer anything to be on guard against, that its interests were vigilantly protected. . .  This sweet spot was steered into almost as if by magic.  Were smoke and mirrors involved?

What enables the proclamation that this is this "the largest single increase of operating funds in our history"?  Partly it's a budget dance.  The actual increase to funding this 2016 funding year over the prior funding year is really just $35 million.  The statements describing the increase to be $43 million instead is because Mayor de Blasio was actually proposing in his original executive budget this year to cut funding from the previous year's level.

Last year, the first year for which Mr. de Blasio was in office to propose a budget for libraries, City Council members in the their budget hearings gleefully announced that with Democrat de Blasio in office the "budget dance" was over.  The "budget dance" engaged in routinely and cynically by Bloomberg involved gaming ploys to distract attention and energy by proposing cuts to the public's beloved libraries that the Bloomberg administration never, ever intended to fully implement and then letting the city council fight and take credit for reducing them.  The good news that first de Blasio budget year was that the dance was theoretically over and that de Blasio somewhat increased library funding over the prior year's Bloomberg budget, even though he by no means made up for all the past Bloomberg cuts.*

(*  That year de Blsio also derailed the NYPL's central library plan, cutting off its funding, although, somewhat inconsistently, he did not simultaneously recapture for other uses plus city oversight and scrutiny the $150 million in city money that had been associated with it.)  

 This year during budget hearings the City Council members were forced to acknowledge that the "budget dance" was back with City Council member Jimmy Van Bramer stating that what they were fighting for this year was not a "restoration" of funds but a "restoration of a restoration" of funds.

Library Administration Officials Commanded Significant Resources to Hit This “We Did It!”  Sweet Spot

Library administration officials and those with them in the lead on this campaign were able to commandeer significant resources with many like Judy Blume, significant personages appropriately eager to fight for the libraries.  One would hope that Ms. Blume and these others would consider that their contributions to the fight were well used.

For instance, on  June 8. 2015, the NYPL ran and ad in the New York Times with a list of supporters which included really big names like Robert A. Caro  Malcolm Gladwell, and Tony Kushner.  At the bottom of the page it said the "Advertisement paid for by NYPL Board of Trustees Chair Evan R, Chesler and NYPL Executive Committee Chair Abby S. Milstein."  Ms. Milstein is from the Milstein real estate family.

Others signing the advertisement statement that "The world's capital of opportunity deserves better" included: Vincent Alvarez, Kurt Andersen, Paul Auster, Rabbi Andy Bachman, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Judy Blume, Andy Borowitz, Phoebe Boyer, Rabbi Angela W. Buchdahl, David Byrne, Geoffrey Canada, Graydon Carter, Mario Cilento, Vin Cipolla, Edwidge Danticat, His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios of America, Junot Díaz, E. L. Doctorow, Jennifer Egan, Héctor Figueroa, Reverend Floyd H. Flake, Jonathan Franzen, Neil Gaiman, Henry Garrido, William Gibson, Elizabeth Gilbert, Adam Gopnik, Kim Gordon, Annette Gordon-Reed, Philip Gourevitch, Vartan Gregorian, George Gresham, Ethan Hawke, John Hockenberry, Jenny Holzer, Siri Hustvedt, Sherrilyn Ifill, Walter Isaacson, Jennifer Jones Austin, Maira Kalman, Imam Khalid Latif, Paul LeClerc, John Legend, Jonathan Lethem, David Levering Lewis, James McBride, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Toni Morrison, David Nasaw, Victor S. Navasky, Harry Nespoli, James Patterson, Darryl Pinckney, Richard Price, Francine Prose, Ruth Reichl, Anthony D. Romero, Oliver Sacks, Stacy Schiff, Anna Deavere Smith, Colm Tóibín, Javier Valdés, Reverend Michael A.Walrond, Jr., Tom Wolfe, Jacqueline Woodson, Sheena Wright, Tim Wu.

Notably, this list includes individuals who, like Citizens Defending Libraries, were plaintiffs in lawsuits against the NYPL to halt the NYPL's Central Library Plan, an ill considered real estate boondoggle involving library space shrinkage and library sell-offs: David Levering Lewis and David Nasaw.  Similarly, it includes now recently deceased E. L. Doctorow (a professor of mine at Sarah Lawrence) who supported the Committee to Save the New York Public Library (of which I am also a part and which has coordinated with Citizens Defending Libraries) joining in criticism of that Central Library Plan.  Tim Wu, last on the list, was candidate for Lieutenant Governor of New York on the ticket with Zephyr Teachout who held a rally with Citizens Defending Libraries decrying the library sell-offs and sales on the steps of the 42nd Street Central Reference Library during their campaign.

The energy of all these individuals wound up supporting a campaign that steered into falling short of the mark, and consequently the prospect of turning libraries into real estate deals. What if some of these individuals could, alternatively, have put their energy into a campaign with higher standards and demanding a better deal for the public?

In the strange bedfellows department, some of the individuals in this long list, former NYPL president Paul LeClerc and Muncipal Art Society president Vin Cipolla were involved with launching or supporting library sell-offs and shrinkage, individuals who would not have wanted this grand campaign to steer a different course.

Celebratory Endorsement While Underfunding Persists

Still others were similarly broadcasting to the public that they were endorsingly enthusiastic about this sweet spot that had been hit.

Brad Lander, who has been working hard to turn libraries into real estate deals for a number of years now, emailed his constituents ( 6/26/2015):

“I am especially excited about . . . six-day service at all our public libraries: Thanks to an additional $43 million, every public library across NYC will be open 6 days a week. This has long been one of my priorities – and it was made possible this year by an incredible “Invest in Libraries” campaign that involved many of you.”

From Urban Liberians Units "Happy Dance" post about the level of funding for the libraries

Urban Librarians Unite is a group that was formed contemporaneously with the launching of the library sales and which has managed to find itself on the supporting side of all the proposed variations of library sales that have materialized since then, posted, on July 29, 2015, its "Library Budget Happy Dance FY16":

It’s starting to feel real now. In June, libraries in NYC received an additional 43 million dollars in operating funding, something we have been fighting for for 6 years. . . .  

. . .   It’s completely awesome and a little bit overwhelming, but real. Definitely real.
We did it. YOU did it. Thank you to all the letter writers, elected official callers, 24 hour read in readers, postcard collectors, researchers, petition signers and city council testifiers. You were so loud that libraries couldn’t be ignored.

Underfunding of Libraries Now Cited As Reason to Sell Them

Has the de Blasio administration restored New York City library funding to anything near sufficient levels? On Wednesday July 15, 2015, a community board in Brooklyn, Community Board 2, voted to sell off and shrink down to just one-third size a major destination library in burgeoning downtown Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Heights Library, for a very low price.  That library had not long ago, in October 1993, under a previous administration, the Dinkins administration, been greatly expanded and completely upgraded at with city funding reflecting appreciable public expense and sacrifice. . .

. . . .The reason for the sale of this public asset worth probably $120 million or more to net the city selling it significantly less than $40 million?: The community board said there was no other alternative to address the lack of city funding.  One of the CB2 board members pushing for the sale and shrinkage of the library, William Flounoy, chairperson of the Economic Development and Employment Committee, speaking of repairs (the air conditioning) that haven't been made at the library said:  "There's no money in the system to maintain it."

Meanwhile, another major library, the Science, Industry and Business Library, built at considerable expense ($100 million) when it opened in 1996 (also with a special focus on business and career functions) is similarly on the sales block for the same reasons.

Must the answer be to now sell and shrink libraries?  In a Brooklyn Magazine article about how in the aftermath of the proclaimed funding victory capital needs of the libraries still remain desperately unmet, Christian Zabriskie, Executive Director of Urban Librarians Unite, says selling the Brooklyn Heights Library (probably SIBL and others too) is the "pragmatic" thing to do because "libraries don’t really have any assets other than the buildings,” as if the purpose of publicly paid for libraries is to pay financial tribute or spin off assets.  Libraries are long-term capital assets that took years to build and acquire.  Rather than rush, wouldn't it be better to wait and continue the fight for restoration of the small amount of funds needed?  Remember Ms. Judy Blume's informing us above that, "If that funding was restored to the City's three library systems, the total budget for public libraries would be less than half of one percent of the total City budget.". . .

. . .  that "less than half of one percent" is what the entire budget would be, not the still missing fractions needed to end de Blasio's carry-ever of the the Bloomberg cuts.

In a recent Ginia Bellafante New York Times article promoting the sale and "redevelopment" of the Heights and other libraries, Zabriskie ridicules the idea that there could be such alternatives: "We would obviously prefer it if buildings weren’t sold off. But it’s the real world. I’d rather ride a unicorn to work, but I can’t.”   This ridicule about the possibility of adequate funding comes from the man that Urban Librarians Unite, in its "Happy Dance" post about funding touts "just never freaking stopped" when it came to library advocacy?

The Underfunding Is Recent, Peculiar To the Bloomberg and de Blasio Adminstartions

The Brooklyn Magazine article quotes David Woloch, Executive Vice President of the BPL who says that in Brooklyn alone, capital needs are a “problem that has been growing for a really long time, for decades” making the current funding problems seem perhaps all the more insurmountable.  But this is disingenuous.  Going just one `decade' back would take us to 2005, and Bloomberg's NYC and BPL deferrals of capital repair expenditures doesn't commence until November of 2008, although the plans to sell and shrink libraries that occasioned them may well go back to 2005. . .  Going back two 'decades' gets us to 1995, the era when under Dinkins and Giuliani we were enlarging and upgrading libraries, including the Brooklyn Heights Library.

Giuliani's expansions continued to the end of his administration carrying over into the first years of the Bloomberg administration that started January 1, 2002.

Mr. Woloch once worked at the city department of transportation for Iris Weinshall, senator Schumer's wife, who now as COO at the NYPL is selling off SIBL, completed as part of a major publicly paid for expansion in 1996.    

Selling Libraries Is Amounts To Public Loss, Not Generation of Funds For the Public

Providing another disingenuous rationale for selling off the Brooklyn Heights library Mr. Woloch and Mr. Zabriskie have advanced the idea that (ignoring any associated public losses), according to Zabriskie, the sale "will generate revenue to repair other branches in lower income areas. The sale of this one library will benefit many."

In point of fact, the money from any sale goes back to the city, not the library.  Although the BPL is, in connection with the proposed Heights Library sale, moving four identified libraries to the head of its list for city capital repair funding of some of their needed repairs there is no guarantee that after whatever lobbying and beseeching is done money will come back to the libraries after this bird-in-the-hand asset is sacrificed and, in the end, there is no way to track things through to show this to have been the case.  Further, some would say the BPL moving these four libraries to the head of the list is just a cynical political move to buy support from key local elected officials at the unfair expanse of other libraries equally or in greater need of funding.

Lastly, although the sale will "gross" a $52 million price for the city and the BPL it has many attendant expenses the city and BPL will have to pay for, including, but not limited to, $16+ million to outfit the new much smaller replacement and a yet to be determined or revealed amount, probably again many millions, to cram shifted functions into the Grand Army Plaza where no additional space will be created to accommodate them.  The BPL has not opened up its books on this, but in the end, the sale could net close to or less than zero.

Zabriskie also invokes his own "library science" analysis to justify his conclusion its a good idea to sell and shrink the Heights library.  I am not a librarian and I don't play one on TV, but given the greater expense of digital books and the fact that the public prefers physical books we would beg to take issue with Zabriskie's expression of his professional opinion on this matter.

Was the campaign for restoration of library funds a successful campaign?  No. Neither that, nor a good one.  As the most recent Citizens Defending Libraries petition to Mayor de Blasio (Mayor de Blasio: Rescue Our Libraries from Developer Destruction) states:

Selling irreplaceable public assets at a time of increased use and city wealth is unjust, shortsighted, and harmful to our prosperity. These plans that undermine democracy, decrease opportunity, and escalate economic and political inequality, should be rejected by those we have elected to pursue better, more equitable, policies.

The campaign has left us exactly there, in a place where we are selling those precious assets.  Only those who think that this is a good thing or believe that this was legitimately the intent of the campaign should believe that it was a good and successful one.

Where Are They Now?: Sharon Greenberger, Evercore and the Revson Foundation- Selling And Shrinking NYC Libraries

Sharon L. Greenberger in government and now . . .  still selling libraries?

Sometimes coincidence seem just too frequent and sometimes it will surprise you where certain people will turn up.

Sharon L. Greenberger

Back last August I wrote a long article, the saga of the Brooklyn Public Library’s creation and pursuit of a “Strategic Real Estate Plan” to sell and shrink (“right-size”) its libraries, an article put together through the vantage of reading over ten years of the Brooklyn Public Library’s own minutes.   See: Sunday, August 31, 2014,  Mostly In Plain Sight (A Few Conscious Removals Notwithstanding) Minutes Of Brooklyn Public Library Tell Shocking Details Of Strategies To Sell Brooklyn's Public Libraries.

One of the BPL trustees who emerged as a fascinating spearhead pushing the plans to put library real estate in the hands of developers was Sharon L. Greenberger (the “L” stands for “Lee”) who was appointed to the BPL board by Mayor Bloomberg.  She was chief of staff for Bloomberg’s top development dog, Daniel Doctoroff, Deputy Mayor for Economic Development and Rebuilding.

It was Ms. Greenberger who became the key designated leader of a BPL board task force created in the fall of 2008 to promote the "Strategic Real Estate Plan."  She regularly appears in the minutes pushing it forward. She is the one who introduced to the board Karen Backus, the former Forest City Ratner vice president, who was hired to create the real estate plan in 2007 and who in her task force role was responsible for coordinating with Backus and being a conduit for all board comments to her.  Greenberger’s committee in February 2009 also reviews whether to hold off on capital work that needs to be done at the Sunset Park Library, given that a secret “Revson Study” called for that library to become a “Mixed Use Real Estate” opportunity.

That “Revson Study” must be a pretty eye-opening one given that the BPL even now, years afterward, refuses to furnish it pursuant to the Freedom of Information Law as it is required to.

Revson

We’ll be back to Revson.

Back to Greenberger

February 2009 was also when Ms. Greenberg’s real estate committee is reportedly in communication with New York City’s Landmarks Commission to ensure that landmark designations don’t interfere with the real estate-related ambitions the BPL has for its multiple historic libraries.

Greenberg over time winds up in a fair number of other development and government related positions, all of which are interesting. 

Greenberger with NYU president John Sexton

For a while Greenburger was involved with NYU’s controversial expansion plan as Vice President of Campus Planning and Real Estate for New York University.  She was described as having “bolted” from it.  When she left to become President and CEO of the New York City School Construction Authority, Greenwich Village Historic District Director Andrew Berman  criticized her for her involvement in selling air rights to developers while at NYU and quipped that the same thing might now happen to NYC schools, something that ultimately proved to be a very valid concern. (See: Planning czar bolts N.Y.U. for Bloomberg schools job, By Lincoln Anderson, April 19 - 25 2006.

From the School Construction Authority Ms. Greenberger moved on to the Department of Education.  She left there in 2011 following the exceptionally brief troubled tenure and departure of Schools Chancellor Cathie Black, the Bloomberg appointee from the public relations world who had no education experience.

Greenberg wasn’t the only Doctoroff staff person to show up on the BPL’s board.  There was also Laurel Blatchford, a Senior Policy Advisor to Daniel Doctoroff before she moved on to become Deputy Commissioner for Strategy Planning, Policy, and Communications at New York City's Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD).  She later was involved on the private sector side in events working towards the dismantling of the South Street Historic District.

If you read the previous longer NNY article it describes much more about how other Bloomberg operatives like Bloomberg Counsel Anthony Crowell another Bloomberg trustee and First Deputy Mayor Patti Harris, also charged with overseeing real estate matters for Bloomberg, were presiding over BPL governance matters in various ways.

Greenberger and Blatchford both overlap in their BPL board tenures, interestingly with another BPL trustee, Janet Offensend.

Greenberger showed up on the BPL board in December of 2004, appointed by Mayor Bloomberg for a five year term.  This is roughly the same time that Janet Offensend makes her first appearance in the BPL's minutes (September 21, 2004).  Ms. Offensend is interesting as another key BPL trustee associated with the BPL’s library sales although she didn’t get appointed to the board until the end of 2005.  Ms. Offensend shows up in the minutes about half a year after her husband David's assumption of the position of Chief Operating Officer at the NYPL where he would oversee the sudden, secretive sale of the Donnell Library in 2007 and the Central Library Plan, another massive boondoggle involving library shrinkage and the proposed sale of the Mid-Manhattan Library and SIBL, the 34th Street Science, Industry and Business Library, together with the destruction of stacks at the 42nd Street Central Reference Library and removal of its books.

Evercore

David G. Offensend started as Chief Operating Officer at the NYPL in the first half of 2004, coming from Evercore, a private equity and investment firm that spun off from the Blackstone Group, an investment company which has, as just one of its many lines of business, the world's largest real estate investment company, and which is headed by Stephen A. Schwarzman.  Mr. Schwarzman transferred $100 million to the NYPL when it was his understanding that the Central Library Plan would then proceed with its plans to shed valuable Manhattan real estate.  Oddly, months before the relatively contemporaneous Donnell sale was publicly known, there was weird speculation in the press that Schwarzman and his Blackstone Group would be involved in an acquisition of Orient Express, the company that it was revealed had contracted to purchase Donnell when information about the apparently bidless sale came out.

Where Are They Now?

Where is Sharon L. Greenberger now?  Yes, she has been at New York Presbyterian, SVP for Facilities Development and Engineering. . .  But she can also be found on the board of the “Charles H. Revson Foundation.”

Remember that “Revson Study” the BPL won’t release?  That study about libraries converted into  “Mixed Use Real Estate Opportunities”?

Recently the Revson Foundation was one of a principal movers and funders behind “Re-imagining New York City's Branch Libraries” that set up an orchestration of “six interdisciplinary teams to present innovative design solutions for the challenges facing branch libraries.”

More than one set of these presentations was made.  I missed the first one that borrowed Brian Lehrer from WNYC to moderate.  I was at the one at the New School’s Furman Center on January 12th early this year.  That evening's audience was informed that materials were going to be put up the web, but they decided not to put up a video of the evening.  It could have been embarrassing in some respects.

At the end of the presentation, the moderating New School host, summing up, said the following:

And again, as the final presentation has shown, and we will see again hopefully, at the end a library is real estate.  It's an integral ingredient in urban development.  I've studied libraries for years, and many design projects around the country have found it's often a nice placating gesture in a real estate development. You want to do commercial development?: Put a library in it and you win a new public that you might not have had on your team initially.  So in short a library has many fronts and functions.

The last presentation referred to above had, among other things, shown, with accompanying diagrams, how provision of libraries could be exchanged for community approval of real estate development: A better, bigger library traded for an upzoning where it is built, or the upzoning of an entire area surrounding such a library based on the exchanged assurance that surcharges on the new development would be paid into the library system’s general coffers.  Anything paid in by what was referred to as such a “surcharge,” would, theoretically, have to not be subtracted out of the city’s budget on the other end. . . . but that virtually insurmountable problem wasn’t hinted at.

Let developers upzone and get a bigger library?

Libraries as `nice placating gestures' to `win’ public approvals for development? . .

. . . Such enticement plans could hardly work if the public felt that libraries were a basic public service they were entitled to no matter what- And wasn’t such public entitlement the deal Carnegie struck with the city when he donated most of the city's libraries?  It's a deal the city is now breaking.

The only way such enticement plans work is if the public is kept starved for libraries and starved for library funding.  That, perversely, puts people hoping to use libraries as pawns for lubricating development in the camp of wanting libraries perpetually underfunded or even on the brink of extermination . . .

Such enticement plans do not work if libraries, like police, fire and sanitation departments, are looked upon as inherent public goods that pay for themselves because the cost of doing without them would be greater.

The presenters at these “re-envisioning” forums were all propounding themselves as being pro-library and pro-library funding..

The entire evening of presentations, more than three hours even in incomplete form, and even before it was opened up for audience questions, served up some good ideas.  It also served up some silly ones and some other ideas that were ominous and frightening.

The talk about having fewer books at the libraries was far too cheerful.  There was talk about libraries that would be appreciably smaller, their “flexible” spaces less committed to traditional library use with the idea of cramming in multiple competing prospective uses.  One possibility focused on: “ephemeral” small temporary storefront libraries.

As I made the point when audience questions were permitted, when evaluating all of this, what gets thrown out as a smorgasbord mix of good, silly and bad ideas is less relevant than which of these ideas gets cherry picked for actual execution by library administration officials.  The panelist presenters were loath to comment when I asked them what they thought of actual plans materializing against the background of the cloud of ideas thrown up.  The plans we have witnessed actually materializing involve sale and shrinkage of libraries and elimination of books, all of this structured to benefit the real estate industry: Selling and shrinking central destination libraries like the Donnell and Brooklyn Heights libraries,* and similarly the Central Library Plan shrinking library space and eliminating books while selling Mid-Manhattan and the Science, Industry and Business libraries.

(* The first ever hearing about selling off a NYC library, this one, will be held Wednesday, June 17th.)

The fact is that the Revson Foundation, as with the too-toxic-to-release “Revson Study” about converting libraries to multi-use development opportunities has been suspiciously in the background and suspiciously aligned with supporting these development ambitions.

The Revson Foundation has prominently backed Spaceworks, a private firm, technically a not-for-profit, comprised of real estate and political insiders that has as one of its principal purposes the privatizing takeover of space to shrink libraries.  Spaceworks targeted as one of its first guinea pig experiments the shrinking of the 7,500 square foot Red Hook Library down to just 5,500 square feet.  This was although the Center For an Urban Future in a report funded by the Revson Foundation (and promoting their redevelopment) said, somewhat at cross purposes, that New York City branch libraries should be at least 10,000 square feet or more and notwithstanding that BPL President Linda Johnson, given a high profile platform to speak unchallenged at the Municipal Art Society, said that 7.500 square feet for a library was “woefully inadequate.”

The Revson Foundation has also partnered with Urban Librarians Unite, a group that has testified in favor of selling and shrinking libraries and that also supports Spaceworks.  It donated at a total of $32,000 to that group over the years of 2012, 2013 and 2014.

To find in addition that the Revson Foundation has on its board Sharon L. Greenberger, who as a Daniel Doctoroff city development official was key in structuring the BPL’s plans to turn all its libraries into real estate opportunities, is shocking.

Looking at the Revson Foundation board, there is something else to exacerbate concern: Evercore, the firm spun off from Blackstone that David Offensend co-founded and left to work at NYPL selling and shrinking libraries. Revson Foundation board member Stacy Dick was at Evercore overlapping with for a number of years with Offensend.

Greenberger now?  She's just arriving at another institution that caretakes appreciable other assets about which the public cares.  About a month ago the YMCA announced Ms. Greenberger is becoming its new president.  She starts in July.  See: YMCA of Greater New York Announces Sharon Greenberger as New President & CEO, April 7, 2015.   

Takeover of Charitable Boards By Wall Street Financiers With Not So Charitable Values

There is new study on the increasing dominance of Wall Street financiers on charitable boards:  "The Wall Street Takeover of Nonprofit Boards," by Garry W. Jenkins at Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law.  See: Wall Street's latest takeover: Charity boards, by Robert Frank, May 28, 2015.

As CNBC’s Robert Frank summarizes:

the percentage of nonprofit board members in the study who come from finance has doubled since 1989. They hold an even larger percentage of leadership positions on nonprofit boards.

From the report:

As financiers come to dominate the boards of leading nonprofits, it is not surprising that their approaches and priorities have made their way, very explicitly and fundamentally, into the governance of the nonprofit sector.

Among multiple other critiques of the pitfalls of such boards the report notes that “numerous critics have written thoughtfully about the ways in which market-based thinking and approaches applied to the nonprofit sector provide false promise, with the potential to dilute charitable values” and “undermine long-term mission focus.”

Mr. Frank wraps up:

.. as the study makes clear, simply "following the money" may not be the best long-term strategy for today's most important charities.

This report and the Robert Frank summarizing of it apparently assume the good intentions of such dominating board members, their principal concern then being that the approach of such board members will be culturally misguided and insensitive to value that cannot be expressed monetarily

A May 30, 2015 New York Times Sunday Review Op-Ed, “Who Will Watch the Charities?,” by David Callahan, founder and editor of Inside Philanthropy, is far more caustic and cynical.  “(W)e should end the charade that all philanthropy is somehow charitable,” says Mr. Callahan.  He cites how earlier this year “a school reform group in Philadelphia offered $35 million to help that city close a funding gap, but demanded the right to open more charters as a condition and wouldn't disclose its donors.”  He warns a big problem with modern philanthropy: “how inextricably entwined it has become with politics and ideology.”  He says:

it’s alarming how in an era of high inequality, private funders have a growing say over central areas of civic life like education and public parks, and how this influence is often wielded against a backdrop of secrecy.

Mr. Callahan says that the secrecy can’t go on, predicting that it won’t, saying that as powerful institutions in American life charities need vigilant oversight.

I am not saying that the Revson Foundation has not done many things of value.  What's more I am sad to be questioning it at all as my aunt, Kay Daly, was Vice President of Revlon in charge of advertising and a close colleague of Revlon’s founder, Charles Revson Sr. who set up the Revson Foundation.  His son, Charles Revson Jr,. his son, is also on the Revson Foundation’s board.

Revson Board

I’ll leave it to the reader to study and try to discern how and by whom influence gets exercised on the Revson Foundation’s board.  I have not yet had time to do as much deep research as I’d like.

Does it matter that Sharon L. Greenberger is really more a development operative hailing from the Bloomberg administration’s Daniel Doctoroff days, than a financier and technically from Wall Street?

Does it matter that Cheryl Effron, a real estate developer on the board, has strong ties to the Bloomberg administration (see this from 2011):

In 2009 she founded Greater NY, a public-private partnership based in the Mayor's Office to engage fifty corporate executives in two-year one-on-one strategic partnerships with non-profit executives to develop new models for social service delivery in New York City.

    * * *

She is a trustee of the Mayor's Fund for the Advancement of New York City.

Does it matter that Jeffrey Goldberg on the foundation board is one of the columnists at Bloomberg View set up in May of 2011 as the editorial division of Bloomberg News, that is “an opinion product . .   to some extent, a reflection of its creator,” Michael Bloomberg, mayor at that time.

I invite my readers to investigate more.  These `where are they now' questions are indeed interesting, but where will WE be without libraries?   Wherever we are, we’ll probably be there without many of our other public assets as well. . . Because, if you can’t stop them at libraries, where can you stop them?

PS:  If it makes you feel any better- or worse- the Revson Foundation has given a great deal of money to WNYC radio which now has on its board MaryAnne Gilmartin, the head of Forest City Ratner (a gatekeeper for one of the library sales, Brooklyn Heights) and has recently run promotional spots that are essentially advertising for Forest City Ratner.

Oops! NYPL Documents The Blank Check Mentality of Certain Reliable Supporters of Library Sales and Shrinkage

NYPL's "Voices of Support" page for the nonexistent Central Library Plan starting off with praise from the Daily News editorial page

Gotcha!  Smile!  Say Cheese!  You’re on Candid Camera!   Caught in the act!

The NYPL (New York Public Library) has just documented the blank check mentality it expects from a cast of supporters it believes can be trotted out to reliably  . .  

. . . To reliably what? We’ll get to that in a moment.                   

The other day the New York Times ran a story letting us know that the NYPL is in bigger trouble than most probably suspected.  It won't be releasing the “new” version of the Central Library Plan (now AKAing as the “42nd Street Library Renovation Plan”) this fall as planned.  The plan’s obvious flaws are too difficult to paper over in the time frame they expected!  (See: New York Public Library Postpones Release of Revised Renovation Plan, by Robin Pogrebin, October 23, 2013.)

Just so everybody knows (pardon any repetition): The Central Library Plan (CLP) is the consolidating shrinkage of more than 380,000 square feet of library space down to just 80,000 square feet of space.  Two significant pieces of Manhattan library real estate would be sold, going the way of the 53rd Street five-story Donnell Library before them: the Mid-Manhattan and SIBL (Science, Industry and Business Library).  As part of the big squeeze, the research stacks of the 42nd Street Central Reference Library would be ripped out, the books banished.

Don’t expect the “new” version of the CLP to be anything more than the old version with a new veneer, its real estate sale and shrinkage goals still intact, still preeminent and still driving all the decisions being made.

What do you do in the interim if you are the NYPL and you are beset by such difficulties?  You dig your grave deeper by putting up a "Voices of Support" page for the nonexistent plan, thus having your “supporters” on record as supporting virtually anything and virtually nothing.

Here is my comment on the Times article:

Putting up a "Voices of Support" page for a nonexistent plan? All that exists of the plan that can be supported is a plan to sell off library real estate, shrink library space way down (from more than 380,000 squarer feet to 80,000) and exile books. Statements of support from a group like Urban Librarians Unite? Research the group and see what that means. A healthy antidote to these "Voices of Support" with lots of specifics can be found in the testimony that Citizens Defending Libraries delivered at the recent City Council hearings on the sell-off of public libraries around the city, available here:

Report on Monday, September 30th City Council Hearing On Sell-off of NYC Libraries Plus Testimony of Citizens Defending Libraries

    Michael D. D. White
    Citizens Defending Libraries

The Times article doesn’t mention that furtherance of the half-baked plan may have been impeded somewhat by the two lawsuits that have been brought against the plan, including the one in which Citizens Defending Libraries (I am a cofounder) is a plaintiff.  (The article doesn’t mention the lawsuits, but comments can.)  The timing of the article was somewhat luscious in that the NYPL’s announcement came just one day after Citizens Defending Libraries delivered its 16,000 plus signature petition (most of those signatures are online) to Mayor Bloomberg at City Hall.

Who are some of these supporters the NYPL feels can be depended upon to support, sight unseen, a plan for sale of library real estate, shrinkage of libraries and banishment of books?  Urban Librarians Unite, Kathy Wylde of the New York City Partnership and the Building and Constructions Trades Council of New York.

Kathy Wylde testifying for the Atlantic Yards megadevelopment at the MTA on Monday, June 22, 2009 after it had markedly degenerated

We’ve seen Ms. Kathy Wylde in this blank-check approval mode, before when she supported the Atlantic Yards mega-development.   At an MTA hearing Monday, June 22, 2009, after the proposal for the Atlantic Yards mega-development had been vastly changed to the detriment of the public Ms. Wylde testified to support the project, speaking in terms of the Partnership’s long-term support for it, virtually oblivious to the fact that the project was so much worse and less defensible than ever.  (See: Tuesday, June 30, 2009, The Partnership for New York City's evolving (and misleading) support for Atlantic Yards.)

In the case of the NYPL’s Central Library Plan, Ms. Wylde’s blank check support will be the inverse of Atlantic Yards: In the case of Atlantic Yards, supporting the megaproject from the beginning, Ms. Wylde continued her unswerving support as the megaproject degenerated profoundly; in the case of the CLP, she is now documented as supporting from day-one a plan so bad that its authors had to withdraw it out of embarrassment.  In either case, the minimum standard for her fixed support as things shift is a discernibly low bar.

Unfortunately, what we get from power-elite representatives like Ms. Wylde is the bottom line of wealth speaking to wealth, resulting in what many of us see as rigged deals, where the vagaries of any public benefit are relegated to afterthoughts to be primped up for public consumption afterwards. . 

Support from Urban Librarians Unite for a plan about which nothing is known except that libraries will be sold and shrunk and books banished may seem strange, until you closely consider that it is almost seems as if Urban Librarians Unite was created with such support being their primary purpose.  See: Saturday, June 8, 2013, Irony Of Ironies: Urban Librarians Unite, Holding A “We Will Not Be Shushed Read In June 8 & 9th! Sign Up Now!” Event, Wanted To “Shush” Citizens Defending Libraries About It.

Support by the Building and Constructions Trades Council of New York?  I have previously observed construction unions’ Pavlovian support for what creates construction jobs irrespective of public harm:

Construction unions are interested in the churn. They are not interested in what is in the public interest (hence their partnering with Ratner). Frank Lloyd Wright once facetiously proposed that all of Manhattan be leveled and replaced by just two phenomenally enormous tall towers. I often think that if such a plan were proposed today the construction unions would be out in droves to support it, not because it was in the public interest but because it would mean a huge amount of union jobs, both demolition and construction.

(See: Friday, March 18, 2011, The Real Question to Ask About the Ratner Bait-and-Switch Approach on Atlantic Yards.)

When it comes to libraries, this reflex on the part of construction unions hurts not only the public, but also other union workers as well.  As was mentioned at a forum at Barnard College this past week (For the Public Good: Public Accountability in NYC, A panel with Elizabeth Blackmar, Aaron Pallas, and J. Phillip Thompson, Thursday, November 7, 2013) the selling off and privatization of public assets like schools and parks is often intertwined with motivations of disenfranchising union workers.

The NYPL’s false step of bringing in the construction unions and creating this documenting gallery of automatic supporters, the likes of those above, arrayed together with others such as the soundly-defeated candidate for mayor City Council Speaker Christine Quinn is probably the first work of the Parkside Group, the NYPL’s expensive new lobbyist.  News of the hiring of the Parkside Group surfaced in the New York Times the day after it was announced that the NYPL wouldn’t be releasing its plans to the public this fall. (See: New York Public Library Hires Firm to Promote Renovation Plan, by Robin Pogrebin, October 24, 2013.) 

The hiring of the Parkside Group means that, in these maneuvers of arraying all these automatic supporters and others, library administration officials are prepared to divert huge amounts of public money and charitable donations into arguing for the sell-off of these public assets for the ultimate benefit of the real estate community.  (See: Wednesday, October 30, 2013, Conundrum For Those Wanting To Donate To Libraries: People Who Would Use Our Donations To Shrink and Sell Off Libraries.)

When will the NYPL be releasing the new edition of its plans?  According to the Times the NYPL said in a statement:

We now expect to unveil the new design sometime after the New Year.

Sometime after January 1st?  What’s important about that January 1st date?  That’s the date when Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio will take office at the city helm.  It would have been impossible for the NYPL to have released more bad plans during the mayoral race as de Blasio would have had to reject them, for the sake of his campaign’s consistency and to keep himself appropriately distinguished from his opposition.  (Candidate de Blasio had already stood on the steps of the 42nd Street Central Reference Library calling for a halt to the sale of New York City’s public libraries.)  (See: Sunday, November 3, 2013, Candidate Lhota's Flub!: He thinks library lovers don't read the Wall Street Journal!!- Checking In On Mayoral Candidates’ Library Positions, de Blasio vs Lhota.)

In addition, any bedraggled release of plans at the tail end of the Bloomberg administration would just associate a design rehash more firmly with the increasingly unpopular departing Bloomberg administration.  No doubt, what the NYPL will want to do is seek a willing collaborator in the de Blasio administration to make it somehow seem that they have a plan that can be considered as “new” and different and probably that the plan is even, in part, a response to Mr. de Blasio’s own high standards and insistence on improvement.  At that point they will trot out again the supporters now on record as supporting the old, discredited plan and hope that nobody will be keeping track.

Chiara de Blasio, candidate de Blasio's daughter vouching for her father about the the sell-offs of public assets we won't see if her father is elected.

Will de Blasio fall for it, or, acting in collaboration, expect that others will?  During the campaign his daughter, Chiara, gave us assurance about where her father stood respecting the sale of public assets.  In the end, the sale of NYC public libraries will remain at bottom what it is: real estate deals for the benefit of developers, not the public.  I don’t think de Blasio will fall for such an NYPL ruse and I certainly hope that when it comes to these matters he will steer his own unveering course.

Irony Of Ironies: Urban Librarians Unite, Holding A “We Will Not Be Shushed Read In June 8 & 9th! Sign Up Now!” Event, Wanted To “Shush” Citizens Defending Libraries About It.

Urban Librarian Unite is having a read-in event (publicized above) to protest the underfunding of libraries but they don't want you to come to it if you are opposed to the real estate deals selling off and shrinking the New York City library system

Urban Librarians Unite is having a “We Will Not Be Shushed Read-In June 8 & 9th! Sign Up Now!” event inviting people to “take a stand against the outrageous proposed cuts to our beloved New York City public libraries.”

Citizens Defending Libraries has a petition that demands that “Mayor Bloomberg stop defunding New York libraries at a time of increasing public use, population growth and increased city wealth.”  The petition has well over 11,000 signatures, most of them online.  Citizens Defending Libraries (of which I am a co-founder) put the Urban Librarians Unite “We Will Not Be Shushed” event in the online calendar where it makes available all New York City library related events likely to be of interest to its petition signers and others.

And then Urban Librarians Unite wanted to “shush” Citizens Defending Libraries about its “We Will Not Be Shushed” event.  Why?  Because the Citizens Defending Libraries petition statement continues with the observation that “Shrinking our library system to create real estate deals for the wealthy at a time of cutbacks in education and escalating disparities in opportunity is not only unjust, it is a shortsighted plan that will ultimately hurt New York City’s economy and competitiveness.”
 
Notwithstanding that Urban Librarians Unite posted on the web that it was inviting “readers, library lovers, librarians, families, and even unsuspecting people just wandering by in front of the library” to participate and join “together to take a stand” against cuts that both organizations were formed to oppose Urban Librarians Unite demanded that Citizens Defending Libraries remove information about the public event about library funding from the calendar because Citizens Defending Libraries was opposing the real estate deals.

Urban Librarians Unite expressed dissatisfaction with the Citizens Defending Libraries testimony at Wednesday’s June 5th City Council Budget hearing where Citizens Defending Libraries called those real estate deals into question.  See: Testimony By Citizens Defending Libraries At June 5, 2013 City Council Committee Hearing On Library Budget Issues.

Here are some excepts from that CDL testimony:

City Council members will say that this underfunding is unjust and must be reversed.  Citizens Defending Libraries wholeheartedly concurs in calling for an end to such underfunding at a time of substantially increasing library use and city growth.

* * * *

On Monday, at the first portion of ths City Council committee hearing concerning budgeting for New York City Library budgets and library funding Anthony W. Marx and Linda Johnson, the respective heads of the New York Public Library and the Brooklyn Public Library, testified that they had a problem approaching donors asking that they give monies to fund the libraries because they cannot make a `credible’ case that any money given to the libraries by such donors will not be immediately subtracted out by the mayor of New York in budget cuts.  Indeed, supporting the observation that there are games being played that we must guard against and that are damaging to the public, Committee Chair James G. Van Bramer concluded with an acknowledgment that the annual budget dance around libraries is a `game.’

The testimony called for the City Council to intervene and investigate how city funds being supplied to the libraries were being plundered in these real estate deals.  As the city is providing the “lion’s share of all the funding for the libraries” Citizens Defending Libraries called for the City Council to seek the same assurance that big charitable donors insist upon to assure that their donated funds will not be “squandered or otherwise made meaningless.”  This made Urban Librarians Unite unhappy.

As much as Urban Librarians Unite sought to kerfuffle with Citizens Defending Libraries over the issue Citizens Defending Libraries did not agree to have Urban Librarians Unite dictate what should be included in its calendar items.  Instead, after much back and forth Citizens Defending Libraries accommodated Urban Librarians Unite by inserting notice of the following wish from Urban Librarians Unite, essentially a dis-invitation to the Urban Librarians Unite event directed to an important segment of the population:

•   Important Note Respecting One Of The Events In The Calendar Above-  The Jun 8 – 9, 2013 24-Hour Library Read-In by New Yorkers Standing Up for Libraries- Hosted by Urban Librarians Unite.  This is one of the events on the calendar not organized by Citizens Defending Libraries (most are not).   Urban Librarians Unite (created circa 2008) contacted Citizens Defending Libraries to express their wish that Citizens Defending Libraries communicate Urban Liberians Unite's wish that people not come to attend their 24-Hour Library Read-In event if they believe:

    •    We shouldn’t be selling off our NYC libraries the way we are.
    •    We shouldn’t be shrinking our library system assets
    •    It is a matter of public concern that we are getting less than appropriate value when these assets are sold, and/or
    •    Public representatives should assert themselves to protect these public assets.

Urban Librarians Unite also informed CDL that they considered inclusion of this publicly advertised (previously come-one-come-all event) public event in the calender “unacceptable.”  In other words they wanted to Shush us about their "We Will Not Be Shushed Read-In June 8 & 9th! Sign Up Now!" event.  Urban Librarians Unite objected to the testimony CDL delivered at the City Council budget hearing on June 5, 2013 and apparently there was concern on their part that people with negative feelings about library sales and shrinkage might participate in the event to express their opposition to underfunding of libraries, or that such people might communicate with attendees of the event about this related subject. CDL doe not allow those holding public events to dictate exclusion (or inclusions) of information in the calendar about relevant library-related events (mayoral forums, library trustee events, etc.), but agreed, in this instance, to express the above about ULU's conscientious efforts to exclude public opposition to the library sales and shrinkage from their message. 

The first communication coming from Urban Librarians Unite making the totalitarian demand that Citizens Defending Libraries remove from its calendar the event designed to capture "unsuspecting people" (library patrons) " just wandering by in front of the library” came in a phone call from an upset Lauren Comito, listed as on the board of Urban Librarians Unite. (We knew Ms. Comito from before because she had come to one of the first Citizens Defending Libraries organizational meetings.  Back then Ms. Comito expressed a desire to avoid the politics library underfunding, and subsequently our communications with Urban Librarians Unite dropped off.)

Ms. Comito expressed a concern that Citizens Defending Libraries was not calling for restoration of library funding.  Since her concern seemed to be expressed in earnest, even if it was a peculiar perception, (and evne though she hung up on us when talking) her concern seemed to deserve a response and I provided the one below:    

Lauren,

This was our testimony yesterday:

Citizens Defending Libraries wholeheartedly concurs in calling for an end to such underfunding at a time of substantially increasing library use and city growth.

See attached for the full letter.

So no, we are not in disagreement with Urban Librarians Unite that funding should be restored.  In fact, another point we make is that the given that the current funding crisis coincides exactly with the ginning up of these real estate deals to shrink the library system (including, as a result, staffing) we see the real estate deals and shrinkage as actually being a cause of the deliberate "unjust" underfunding, therefore another reason to fight them.  (One reason we are fighting for baseline funding.)

I don't know what you mean when you say you know what happened in the Donnell deal but I don't think it is was a good thing for the public.  [Ms. Comito had said on the phone that she was not naive and knew what happened at Donnell but did not elaborate about what she meant by this.]

With Donnell, the Central Library Plan and every library sell-off plan the details of which have actually seen the light of day, including the Brooklyn Heights library, there has been a consistent and substantial diminishment of the publicly owned assets (usually by 2/3rds to 3/4ths) with no benefit to the public while others are benefitting in nontransparent top-down concocted deals that, like Donnell, benefit connected players in the real estate industry.

    •    Donnell Library: Reduction of public library space by more than two-thirds (from 97,000 square feet to 28,000 square feet- NY Times figures, though by other calculation it is more extreme).  Library worth perhaps $120 million to the public in terms of continued ownership (based on recent transactions) is sold to net $39 million.

    •    Central Library Plan:  Reduction of public library space by more than two-thirds or about three-quarters (from 380,000 square feet down to 80,000 square feet- That’s the 139,000 sq/ft Mid-Manhattan plus the 160,000 sq/ft SIBL plus the 80,000 sq/ft of stacks being destroyed.  In the very recent past, before the real estate guys took over it was proposed to nearly double Mid-Manhattan’s space, increasing it by 117,000 square feet for more library services) The cost of this 380,000 square foot shrinkage is $350 million or more. It is not paid for by the real estate sales because they bring in less than that amount (Marx referred to bringing in $300 million at least a $50 million loss).  Instead, the shrinkage is justified because it is asserted by Marx and the NYPL that a smaller library (with fewer librarians) might cost $15 million a year less to run.  Most savings of this sort involve personnel cost reductions, not brick and mortar.  (I agree with you that libraries are more than something just physical.)
  
    •    Brooklyn Heights Library: Reduction of public library space by more than two-thirds (from 62,000 square feet to 15,000 or maybe now 20,000 square feet).  Cost benefit to the public this time?  Not out yet, but it’s supposed to be a “partnership” arrangement rather than a request for bids arrangement and likely with Forest City Ratner with a record of abusing those relationships.  (The no-bid arrangement for the BAM South library to "replace" the historic Pacific branch- hearings were Tuesday morning- started out as an RFP to build a "parking garage" which through partnership has become something extravagantly different and more generous for the developer.)

Do we really want the library officials currently running the system to take these transactions and use them, as proposed, as models for sales and shrinkage throughout the system?  You say you understand these things.   Our understanding of them is such that we have to oppose the shrinkage now and hold the line so that it doesn’t spread with things like the plan for northern Manhattan and the plan to similarly “leverage” all of the BPL’s real estate.  We also believe that it makes sense to do as we have and call for a moratorium on real estate deals until proper funding is restored: That is likely, faster than anything, to result in a quick restoration of funding.   Doing the opposite and letting underfunding be an excuse for real estate deals (the exact thing they want) is only likely to result in more underfunding (because it leads to more of what they want).

I hope you stand with us one day.  And if you think any particular library looks shabby at the moment that may have a lot to do with the lack of funds we are all protesting.  (When developers want to get rid of something they work at making it shabby first.)

We had other testimony delivered yesterday that I can also send you that said, that as a substantial giver of funds, the city should do what any other substantial givers of funds should normally do, exercise control to make sure the intended benefit of those funds is effected rather that stolen. How else would you turn this around?: The plundering and shrinkage of assets itself compounds the system’s deprivation of funds.

Others are asking similar questions about how the library officials are wastefully pouring money into creating these real estate deals, like the $350 million potential net loss into the Central library plan and then asking for more money as if there is no irresponsible management of assets to be noticed.  For instance, New York Times architectural critic Michael Kimmelman tweeted the following and you can see the responses it generated:   

Nervy:@NYPL email begging donations for endangered branch libraries, which NYers really need+want, while it pours $$ into CLP @ 42nd St.

Kimmelman tweet

Click to enlarge.  Go to Twitter to see full conversation full size.  Some of the Twitter conversation in response to  Kimmelman's tweet

Ultimately, Christian Zabriskie, the founder and principal spokesperson for Urban Librarians Unite at events, stepped into the fray to demand the event be removed from the CDL calender of library events "immediately."  (The underscoring was his.)

Above, event at City Hall protesting the underfunding of libraries in which Urban Librarian Unite participated.  CDL was confused about what to do since the even was organized by libary officials want to sell libraries and shrink the system.  Some CDL members participated, others just watched.  Most people there said they did not want libraries sold or  the system shrunk.

Christian Zabriskie enlarged from the larger tableaux above and below

 

The City Hall event organized with library resources was similar to the April 18th City Hall CDL and Committee to Save the Public Library event event organized without those resources

Citizens Defending Libraries and the Committee to Save the New York Public Library had elected officials like NYC Comptroller John Liu and Assemblyman Micha Kellner

Citizens Defending Libraries and the Committee to Save the New York Public Library had representatives from a troop of girl scouts who came out to save the Pacific Branch Library they use.  Afterwards, the troop produced a wonderfully cute video making their plea (other videos available from CDL).  Following suit the NYPL City Halle event featured a mini-podium to feature children's pleas.

Mr. Zabriskie expressed concerns that he didn’t want Citizens Defending Libraries attempting to “co-opt” the Urban Librarians Unite event, given his strong disagreement with the Citizens Defending Libraries testimony, which he considered directly against his work, putting us at “diametrically opposite ends of this fight.”   Saying that he had “150 volunteers” to work the event he said he did not want fliers or petitions (information?) around that was not consistent with what he was working to achieve and that he didn’t want Urban Librarians Unite “members associated with” our testimony opposing the sale and shrinkage of library system assets.

Urban Librarians Unite was created in 2008, almost exactly the same time that the real estate deals selling off libraries were becoming public.  It was November 7, 2007, the very end of 2007, that the Donnell Library sale startled the public with its secrecy when it was suddenly unveiled as a fait accompli.  As noted, 2008 was also around the time when the underfunding of libraries, now used as an excuse to sell them, began to greatly accelerate.  Researching, I find that in all the years since it was formed in 2008 Urban Librarians Unite has apparently never raised questions about the library sales or shrinkages, never been critical about any of the big players or politicians involved behind the scenes.  The most radical thing I find on the ULU site is a link to a Zabriskie-authored American Libraries article sympathetic to the Occupy Wall Street library.
 

August 6, 2012 Zabriskie published an ebook on Amazon ($32:00?- 86 pages, no reader reviews or ratings) by the name “Grassroots Library Advocacy.”  The Amazon description refers to “rounding up advocates from the wider community and conducting a grassroots effort” and, despite the fact that Lauren and Christian previously communicated an aversion to being “political” it says it details “lessons learned . . . including advice for dealing with political leaders and the media.”

This fall 2011 article “Grassroots Advocacy: Putting Yourself Out There- Find fresh ways to energize support for libraries” (By Lauren Comito, Aliqae Geraci, and Christian Zabriskie) may have been a forerunner to that book: 

Are you trying to put pressure on politicians directly? Show up at a budget hearing and see if you can give testimony. Line up your speaking points in advance and rehearse them, be polite but firm, and dress professionally. Ideally, you’ll bring along a bunch of your friends and supporters, who will do the same.

This is the “fourth year of [the Urban Librarians Unite] hosting our 24-hour Read-In on the steps of the Brooklyn Public Library.”  The idea is sign up and symbolically read any literature you want on “the steps of the Brooklyn Public Library.”  I had been thinking of reading George Orwell.  I communicated that to Christian and Lauren.

It is interesting to think that if Urban Librarians Unite had not been formed in 2008 back when the sell-offs shrinking the library system started, that an organization like Citizens Defending Libraries (created this past February in response to breaking headlines with new information about the sell off of libraries) might have sprung into existence far sooner to expose how real estate deals that Urban Librarians Unite does not oppose are dismantling New York City's library system.