City Council Holds Back East Oakland Library

Fear, uncertainty, and doubt are growing in a poor east Oakland neighborhood as City Hall falls years behind in delivering a promised branch library. In addition, the city council refuses to allocate money that would make up for delays and cost increases caused by its reckless political gamble on Measure N.

Two years ago the State awarded a grant of $6,513,345 for a library at 81st Avenue and Rudsdale Street. As part of the grant application, the City allocated $3.5 million in matching Redevelopment Agency funds. Library director Carmen Martinez said, "It's going to be built, and it's on the way." San Francisco Chronicle, December 6, 2004)

Weed-filled vacant lot; new schools in background Pretty drawing, but no building, no books

The City committed to a timeline. The library was supposed to go out to bid by Oct. 1, 2005. However, a full set of plans was not submitted to the State Architect until Jan. 5, 2007; required State approvals will not arrive for months. Contractors cannot bid on construction, and the vacant lot sits blighted with an overgrowth of weeds. The timeline said construction will be completed by June 1, 2007, but it will not happen.

Some people foment divisive tensions in the 81st Ave. neighborhood by blaming the delays and financial uncertainty on the defeat of Measure N, a $148 million bond proposal for a big library downtown that also sprinkled a few crumbs to branch facilities.

That's exactly wrong. Two years before Measure N, the City's application for the 81st Avenue branch library identified all the funds needed. The budget for the Redevelopment Agency (which is the city council wearing a different hat) included the required $3.5 million match for the State grant, proclaiming: "By 2007, this new library will be constructed in an area currently without accessible library services. It will provide library services for the two small elementary schools being built at this site, and will serve a total of 11 nearby schools." (Redevelopment Agency budget for fiscal years 2005-07, issued Aug. 2005, p. C-29)

The City never tied the 81st Avenue branch to a future bond measure. Library director Martinez never dared to tell residents that voters would be held hostage for $148 million before the City would build this branch.

In early 2005 the City bought detailed plans for $1.6 million, handing a no-bid contract to a favored architectural firm. Yet the completed plans were not submitted to the State Architect until almost two years later.

City violates its timeline

Sometime during 2005, city councilmembers decided they wanted a palace library downtown. They judged that voters would accept a big bond issue and a new property tax to pay for it. Why not hold off the 81st Avenue branch, too, they figured, and demand more money for it in Measure N, as the proposal became known on the November 2006 ballot.

The plot was secret. As late as last June the library's master plan repeated that the 81st Avenue library was "already funded." (Master Facilities Plan, June 2006, p. 46) Only a month later, lo and behold, the city council wrote Measure N with a $3 million line item for this "already funded" branch.

However, to City Hall's surprise, the Measure N scheme failed; voters rejected a palace library downtown. Still dispensing misinformation, library director Martinez told a reporter two days after the defeat of Measure N that construction at 81st Avenue should begin in spring 2007, even though necessary State approvals had not even been requested. (Montclarion online, Nov. 9, 2006)

In addition to delaying the 81st Avenue library for Measure N, City Hall has left the neighborhood uncertain whether the library will ever open. As City officials knew, construction costs rose at a brisk rate during the housing bubble of the last several years. Now the City itself estimates that it must find $2.5 million dollars more to build and furnish the branch.

If the city council had a shred of moral honor, it would appropriate the remaining funds needed to build the branch – now.

Instead, the council has left the City chasing after more grants and conducting unspecified fundraising activities. (Resolution on accepting grant from Long Foundation, p. 1) The council announced a $100,000 grant from the Thomas J. Long Foundation in February – a tiny part of the shortfall. To demonstrate City Hall's priorities, while people go around begging for bits and pieces toward the branch library, the council just last month voted to spend $485,000 a year on more administrative staff for itself.

Suppose Measure N had passed. Given City Hall's record of mismanaging the 81st Avenue library, what is the likelihood that the City would administer a $148 million package with minimum competence and honesty?

The children of this east Oakland neighborhood are growing up without the branch library promised by the City. The 2000 Census found that median family income in the area was $32,917 – nearly a third less than the Oakland median family income of $46,230. Measure N contained money for fancy custom-milled shelves in a palace downtown, but City Hall has betrayed and fumbled a library for one of the most needy neighborhoods in Oakland.

Councilmember Jean Quan, lead campaigner for Measure N, often brings herself nearly to tears when she speaks about "the children." She put pictures of young ones front and center on the Measure N campaign literature. It is overdue for City Hall to allocate the funds and get the library built. A model city does not teach children that commitments are made to be broken, delayed, and improvised, all behind closed doors.

Now Library Promises the Building … In Two Years

According to a page now available on the website of the Oakland Public Library, the 81st Avenue branch will be built by Spring 2009 – almost two years late. During those two years, the children of east Oakland are growing up deprived of the library promised them back in 2004. This is the consequence of the dirty game played around Measure N. The overly wise politicians halted the project in 2005, took a gamble on milking more money with their the Measure N proposal in 2006, and failed. The City web page has not a word about this shameful conduct.

Nor has the City removed all doubt about what will happen. On the same City web page there is a link to a budget summary that admits the total cost will be $13 million. However, identified funds from the State grant, the Oakland Redevelopment Agency and all other sources total only $10.7 million – more than $2 million short. Assuming the City and its Redevelopment Agency come up with the difference, the obvious question to the city council is: why didn't you appropriate this money and get started two years ago as you promised?