Director Susan Odencrantz said she plans to post a full-time security guard outside the entrance to the first-floor restrooms, where drug use is rampant, and allow only one person inside each restroom at a time, the Tacoma News Tribune reported April 3. “I don't think we can stop it all, but I think we can slow it down and make it uncomfortable,” she told the trustees. Other measures will include increasing security staff to allow more patrol hours both inside and outside the building.
The board didn't address where the $100,000 would come from. Odencrantz said she planned to rely on cost-cutting measures and possibly draw from the library's trust fund. At its March 17 meeting the board had refused to approve the spending, hoping to pressure police and the city council to address the problem.
Two years ago the library was criticized for installing a syringe-disposal unit on the walls of restroom stalls.
Posted April 7, 2003.