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Library Funds Restored in Philadelphia BudgetThe Philadelphia city council May 25 approved a revised budget submitted by Mayor John Street that restores $3.5 million in funding for the Free Library of Philadelphia. The additional dollars will allow the library to maintain full service and Saturday hours at all 55 of its branches. In January, the library administration had designated 20 branches as express libraries that would be open only four hours a day with support staffing, a plan that generated a public outcry and a judicial injunction that blocked the city from implementing the service cuts.To help pay for the increased funding, the budget calls for a new billboard excise tax, higher billboard-licensing fees, and a tax on valet-parking operations, the Philadelphia Daily News reported May 25. Councilman Michael A. Nutter, a frequent critic of Street, said in the May 26 Philadelphia Inquirer that the mayor’s last-minute decision to restore money for the library and other popular programs proved that the funding crisis had been “manufactured.” Amy Dougherty, executive director of the Friends of the Free Library of Philadelphia, gave credit to library supporters whose “rallies, letters, e-mails, faxes, petition drives, city council testimony,” and other publicity “helped to keep the heat on our lawmakers and build a low murmur of concern into a groundswell of outrage that could not be ignored.” Posted May 27, 2005. |
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