Call to Action: Week 2 | Save Sioux City Public Library Funding

Let's Keep Up the Pressure

The Issue

The Sioux City City Council is proposing to cut the Public Library’s $4 million annual budget by $2 million/year by 2028—a 50% reduction. If enacted, these cuts could:

• Close both the Morningside and Perry Creek branch locations
• Eliminate the Hot Spot internet lending program
• Reduce hours and lay off library staff

 The City Council will vote on the budget on March 18. YOUR VOICE MATTERS NOW.

What You Can Do

• Call your council members. All council members—Mayor Bob Scott, Mayor Pro Tem Julie Schoenherr, Councilmember Rick Bertrand, Councilmember Craig Berenstein and Councilmember Ike Rayford—can be reached at: (712) 279-6102.

• Send them email. You can also email council members individually or send a message to all of them at once on their website.
• Attend a council meeting and speak up. Council meetings are held the first four Mondays of every month at 4 p.m. in Council Chambers on the 5th Floor of City Hall. The final meeting where you will have an opportunity to speak will be on Monday, March 16, where you can attend in person to speak during the Citizen Concerns portion of the meeting.

• Timing's bad - let the new Director get hired

• Main is uniquely built to be suited as a library with loadbearing reinforcement necessary to hold volumes of books

• Branches used to be throughout community - don't make us suffer whiplash as we change direction under different City Councils

• Library provides workforce development services

• Library provides youth services

• Library provides WiFi connectivity for folk who otherwise don't have

• Main is a vital community meeting space

• Main Libraries are necessary to house admin services and as hub for supportive services for branches

• You got the Library's attention - now step back and let a new Director do their job

• Bookmobile could more efficiently serve neighbors - bring one back

• Main is close to other human services and transportation systems - strategically located

• More personnel would be needed to staff more sites

• More expensive in the long run to have four sites

• Hours are better understood with Main having Sunday and evening hours

• Best bang for the buck as far as community services at the Library

• Library personnel already go out to schools and various neighborhoods; this all currently shows up as a Main Library expense

• If you want major changes, you need to be more strategic about it - hire library service professionals to conduct studies regarding where branches should be and what size is needed

• It is fiscally irresponsible to start slashing ONE department's budget by 25% while giving big businesses incentives

• As libraries face attacks across the country, this plays into the sort of anti-intellectual warfare that drives away businesses and individual looking for places to relocate

• The Main Library is critical to support families trying to raise involved, interested, and aware citizens

• The true costs of branches isn't reflected in the budget so Council is basing decisions on misunderstandings

• Don't play neighborhoods off each other ("wouldn't Leeds or the Westside like a library of their own?")

• Cost of closing a Main Library, divesting of books, opening up two new spaces, building to suit, moving books in, creating adequate parking, finding public transit nexus, etc. etc. etc. is prohibitive

• Four small libraries don't create critical mass or have space for large meetings - 4 small places don't allow dexterity that 1 large and couple small afford

• 21^st Century libraries can respond to community concerns in vital ways that save taxpayer dollars

• Don't rent buildings; own them. The City owns the Main Library building.

• Library patrons are voters