School board debates libraries

By Harold Gwin

A school board member who is also on the library board took exception to the resolution.

YOUNGSTOWN — A city school board resolution urging the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County to keep its West Side and Brownlee Woods libraries open generated some heated debate among school board members.

Richard Atkinson, a school board member who is also a member of the library board, took strong exception to the resolution, saying that it essentially is telling the library board that it doesn’t know what it is doing.

The library board’s building committee has recommended closing the West Side branch at 2815 Mahoning Ave., and a long-term library study has recommended that Brownlee Woods at 4010 Sheridan Road be merged with the library in Struthers in 2011.

The public library is facing a $2 million budget shortfall and, despite making various cuts to reduce spending, still is $100,000 short, library board officials have said.

The library board has given supporters of the West Side branch two months to try to come up with funds to keep it open. The board will spend $41,000 to keep it open during that time period, money the board doesn’t have, Atkinson said.

School Board President Anthony Catale, who had the resolution put on Tuesday’s school board agenda, said it only asks the library board to consider keeping the two branches open because of their valuable service to the community. It doesn’t criticize that board’s actions, he said.

Those locations are important for city schoolchildren who may not have access to computers or other research facilities in their homes, Catale said, adding that many of them have no transportation to get to other libraries.

Atkinson said the library board has looked long and hard at the issue, and that included usage studies and plans to help children who would lose their neighborhood library.

The board even had public meetings in the affected areas, but no one came, he said, questioning why the school board would get involved. There was no school-board fuss when the North Side Library was closed some time ago, he said.

Catale said he wasn’t on the school board at that time, adding that, had he been, he would have asked for the same type of resolution.

The board passed the resolution 5-2 with Atkinson and Jacqueline Taylor opposed. Catale, Lock P. Beachum Sr., Shelley Murray, Michael Murphy and Dominic Modarelli supported it.

gwin@vindy.com