After months of uncertainty generated by a grim budget that induced the council to vote to close all three of the city’s libraries, followed by the failure of two tax measures, SPL staffers now have to decide either to find other employment or hope for the success of another possible ballot measure—this time with language specifically calling for library funding—that the Friends group hopes to place before voters by November. Employees will be placed on a call-back list for two years if the city should reopen the libraries.
Jayne Wilsey, a librarian at the city’s Steinbeck branch since 1991, said in the January 14 Monterey County Herald that she has an MLS but doubts she would quality for an administrative assistant post under current city guidelines.
“It’s very difficult to make a decision at this point. We don’t know if the library will be closed for three months or three years,” said Richard Allyn, who has worked at Steinbeck since 1975. “We’re not looked at as people. We’re looked at as salaries to be lopped off the budget. They don’t know what they are doing to our lives.”
Posted January 14, 2005.