Ted Soqui

Richard J. Riordan Central Library

While Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the L.A. City Council continue to deal with lingering budget deficits, there's one bright spot amid the darkness -- L.A. public libraries are now open longer.

Starting today, the added hours at the city's 73 libraries is the second phase of returning the public library system to its former glory. The turnaround came after L.A. Weekly exposed severe budget cuts to the libraries. Public library officials and the librarians' union credit that article for the creation and passage of Measure L, which infused the library system with more cash.

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John Szabo

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa appointed a new head librarian for the city's public library system today: John Szabo, who has run the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System since 2005.

Librarian union president Roy Stone doesn't know much about Szabo, but he's sorry to see L.A. City Librarian Martin Gomez leave for a job with USC. "[Gomez] did a lot of good," Stone says, "and he wanted to do things, but he wasn't around long enough."

Gomez, in fact, was widely respected across the country as an innovative and top-notch leader. So what will Szabo bring to the table?

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How do I get this fool back to L.A.

Can L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa just admit the pending Westside Subway extension, formerly known as the "Subway to the Sea" (or, even more optimistically, "the most utilized subway in the nation, maybe the world"), is permanently on hold?

Every time he visits Washington, which is likely more than he visits South L.A., Mayor V makes this warm fuzzy speech about our city's cutting-edge public transportation plans --

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Back from the dead.

Libraries are so in right now.

This, thanks mostly to the fact that, last election, voters finally woke up and saw the wreckage: L.A. City Councilmembers had been hacking the public library system to bits, a non-solution to the hole of debt they'd dug themselves into.

But Measure L changed all that...

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merrick_monroe

Not an L.A. library branch (but could be).

Ah, L.A. City Hall, always tackling the Big Issue. Like cat declawing and an Arizona business boycott that has no teeth.

And now the accidental, over-the-shoulder viewing of internet porn at public libraries is a matter of serious inquiry among city officials.

Yes, this was actually a major topic of discussion at the Arts, Parks, Health and Aging Committee meeting this week.

And what was done about it?

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Ted Soqui

Richard J. Riordan Central Library

L.A. voters strongly approved Measure L today, early returns showed. The city ballot initiative increases dedicated spending for the Los Angeles Public Library system by $50 million over the next few years without raising taxes.

Lucy McCoy, chairwoman of Yes on Measure L, said: "Tonight was a vote for keeping our kids safe after school, for helping job seekers get back to work, for seniors looking for a warm place to read and for all the Library goers young and old.  Angelenos have sent a clear message that our libraries are a critical part of the fabric of our community."

Last year, the L.A. Weekly feature story "City of Airheads" exposed deep, City Hall-approved budget cuts to L.A. public libraries.

In response, outraged residents began demanding that L.A. City Council members restore funding. L.A. City Councilman Bernard Parks then authored Measure L.

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Jason Jones

Sheryn Morris has been a librarian for 32 years. Eighteen of them at the Los Angeles Public Library system. She currently works at the reference desk at the literature and fiction section of the Richard J. Riordan Central Library in downtown.

"We really love our jobs," says Morris, referring to herself and other librarians, "and we're here to help people. And there's a lot more work to do to help the community."

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Maybe Eric Garcetti just forgot to put his glasses on

At L.A. City Hall, a new mantra is emerging: When in doubt, plead ignorant.

That's how City Council President Eric Garcetti chose to handle a February 18 KPCC radio question about his role in cutting the Los Angeles Public Library system down to a gimpy non-resource last May.

Reporter Frank Stoltze asks Garcetti how he can support Measure L (the library-saving item on the March 8 municipal ballot) when he previously voted for cuts that drastically reduced library hours and personnel. Garcetti's lazy response:

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L.A. Librarian Alicia Moguel

The Benjamin Franklin Branch Library in Boyle Heights serves 16 local elementary schools -- from public to private -- but young students can't go to the busy library after school on Mondays due to deep budget cuts to the Los Angeles Public Library system.

"We no longer have Monday hours," says Benjamin Franklin Branch manager Alicia Moguel, "so students and other people who rely on our services can't use them."

Aside from the dying city of Detroit, Los Angeles is the only significant U.S. municipality to close down its entire library system two days a week.

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L.A. Librarian Carole M. Kealoha

At the Mar Vista Branch Library on the west side, senior librarian Carole M. Kealoha says patrons are not happy about the steep budget cuts to the Los Angeles Public Library, where they rely on its services and resources.

"Not everyone has a computer at home," says Kealoha. "They can't afford it. So they come to the library."

But with libraries closed two days a week -- Sunday and Monday -- and reduced operating hours on other days, patrons' access to computers and other things has become uncomfortably limited. Take, for example, the case of a young student who recently visited the Mar Vista Branch.

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L.A. Librarian Maddy Kerr

At L.A.'s Exposition Park Branch Library near the University of Southern California, children's librarian Maddy Kerr has seen firsthand the troubling after-effects of severely reduced operating hours at the Los Angeles Public Library system.

"People tell me that if we're closed," says the librarian, "they can't get their (unemployment or veteran) benefits." She adds, "I find it personally heartbreaking."

Military veterans and the unemployed aren't the only people hurt by slashed services at L.A.'s public libraries due to steep budget cuts.

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Thelma Hernandez

Thelma Hernandez says the L.A. public library system has been an essential resource for her family, all of whom regularly visit the Robertson Branch Library on L.A.'s westside.

Not only do Hernandez and her two kids take out books, DVDs, and CDs, but the young mother is improving her English writing skills by working with a tutor at the library. Yet reduced operating hours at L.A.'s public libraries due to deep budget cuts have made things much more difficult for Hernandez.

"Sometimes I can't go," she says, noting that libraries citywide are now shuttered on Sundays and Mondays and close at 5:30 p.m. three days a week. "It was easier before when it was open six days."

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L.A. Curbed

On Tom LaBonge's watch: the $875 thou median known as Vermont Triangle Park

Tomas O'Grady, the L.A. Times endorsed City Council District 4 challenger, told LA Weekly that Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and City Council's decision to shutter L.A. Libraries two days a week "was the biggest scam."

We couldn't agree more. If passed in the Municipal Elections March 8, Measure L will re-open libraries seven days a week at no extra cost to taxpayers by guaranteeing the Library Department a higher percentage of property tax revenue -- an issue that the Times out of character endorsement of a non-incumbent (O'Grady) to City Hall focuses on.

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Chinatown Branch Library in downtown L.A.

Read the most recent L.A. Weekly news story on public library budget cuts: L.A.'s Library Measure L.

At the Chinatown Branch Library in downtown Los Angeles, manager Shan Liang says Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese immigrants who know little, if any, English rely on her multi-lingual staff for getting through the day.

"You hear people's stories about how they struggle and it brings tears to your eyes," says Liang. "They don't know where to turn but the library."

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L.A. Librarian Henry Gambill

Read the most recent L.A. Weekly news story on the public library budget cuts: L.A.'s Library Measure L.

Aside from the dying city of Detroit, Los Angeles is the only significant U.S. municipality to close down its entire public library system two days a week due to severe budget cuts.

At the Robertson Branch Library on L.A.'s Westside, young adult librarian Henry Gambill has seen the fall out of reduced operating hours, as well as reduced staff. "Everything takes a lot longer now," he says.

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L.A. Librarian Jane Dobija

When it comes to the harsh budget cuts that have shuttered L.A.'s public libraries two days a week, and reduced operating hours on other days, Jane Dobija thinks back to her time as a radio journalist covering the Polish revolution in the late 1980s.

"When people lose the ability to get information," says Dobija, now a young adult librarian at the Porter Ranch Branch in the northern part of the San Fernando Valley, "that affects democracy."

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Cypress Park Branch Library

In northeast Los Angeles at the Cypress Park Branch Library, acting senior librarian Patrick Xavier has been dealing with the daily fall out of severe budget cuts to the Los Angeles Public Library system, which has reduced his staff.

"It's a struggle to maintain a high level of customer service when you have to make sure the day-to-day things need to be done," Xavier says.

In addition, to far less librarians on the job, Los Angeles joins the dying city of Detroit as the only significant U.S. municipality to close down its entire library system twice weekly -- a choice Detroit leaders made during the early-1980s recession, and from which its cultural core seems never to have recovered.

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Ted Soqui

Richard J. Riordan Central Library in downtown L.A.

At the Studio City Branch Library in the San Fernando Valley, acting senior librarian Karen Pickard-Four says teens and senior citizens feel the pain of severe budget cuts at the Los Angeles Public Library system.

"For those kids who don't have a computer at home," says Pickard-Four, "it really messes things up."

Los Angeles joins the dying city of Detroit as the only significant U.S. municipality to close down its entire library system twice weekly -- a choice Detroit leaders made during the early-1980s recession, and from which its cultural core seems never to have recovered.

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Richard J. Riordan Central Library in downtown L.A.

Update, 2:50 p.m.: The Library Foundation of Los Angeles gave a major boost to the Measure L campaign, contributing $200,000 to get the ballot measure passed. Read more after jump.

Last summer, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the L.A. City Council took the extraordinary step of closing the city's entire public library system two days a week -- the only major city in the United States to do such a thing in recent years.

The result, according to Teri Markson, a children's librarian at L.A.'s Fairfax Branch, has not been pretty.

"What we've gone through the past year has been incredibly painful," says Markson, a 15-year Los Angeles Public Library veteran, "because we can't do what we've previously been able to do."

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Ted Soqui

Demonstrators at a recent rally where budget cuts to the L.A. Public Library system were denounced

Almost certainly prompted by queries from L.A. Weekly as it gathered info for its blockbuster story "City of Airheads," council members Tom LaBonge and Janice Hahn are asking for a delay in the bizarre fiscal shakedown in which Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the Los Angeles City Council forced the 73 public libraries to pay back the city's General Fund for the libraries' massive utility costs.

The libraries and parks are the only two city departments forced to pay their heating, water and electricity bills to the profitable Department of Water and Power -- in essence an internal tax of tens of millions of dollars that has forced library closures.

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