Word that the mayor’s considering shutting down the Stetson Branch Library has Dixwell up in arms — and organizing to save what some call the last after-school refuge for neighborhood kids like Mytisha Spencer (pictured at top).
Neighbors calling themselves “Concerned Citizens for Stetson Branch Library” have begun circulating a petition calling on officials to save the Dixwell Avenue outpost from cuts in the coming year’s proposed city budget, which Mayor John DeStefano plans to unveil this week.
“Stetson has functioned as a community center since the Dixwell Community [‘Q’] House closed its doors in 2002,” the petition reads in part. “Closing down Stetson would add further insult to our already injured community that is struggling to heal. Furthermore, closing down Stetson will definitely contribute to increased youth violence and crime, as the library is one of the few safe havens for our youth.”
Meanwhile, neighborhood youth outreach worker Doug Bethea (pictured at left) said he’s organizing 30-40 teens and parents to storm a 6 p.m. appearance by the mayor at the main public library branch Thursday, at which he plans to unveil his budget. Bethea hopes to have the neighborhood drill team he coaches perform at the protest. He said he has the kids do their homework at Stetson.
“You already took away the Q House. Now you’re going to take away the library. What are saying — you want them on the street? Maybe we should go to his [the mayor’s] house and use his computers and books!” an agitated Bethea said at Stetson Monday.
Twelve-year-old Mytisha Spencer is doing her part by filling out library cards, cleaning up, running errands to the store for the librarians — and keeping her fingers crossed. She started volunteering at Stetson two years ago, after library staff noticed she was getting into fights and needed something productive to do. She said she’s there six days a week now.
“I don’t want them to close,” Spencer said Monday. “I need this library.”
Presenting “Choices”
Reached Monday afternoon, Mayor DeStefano did not sound like someone planning to shut down a library.
The Dixwell furor began after DeStefano floated the possibility of closing Stetson in passing in this Register article.
In the conversation Monday, DeStefano said closing Stetson was just one of many “choices” the city has to look at in closing a $17 million projected gap in the budget he’s putting together for the fiscal year that starts July 1.
“The public deserves to know what the choices are,” he said.
According to DeStefano, the $17 million gap represents the difference between the city’s expected revenues ($452.6 million), assuming no new tax increases; and the city’s projected expenses ($469.3 million), based on the governor’s projected budget and predicted tax collection rates.
Contributing to the gap, according to DeStefano: an overall 5.4 percent leap in expenses, including a 12 percent hike in energy costs; and a proposed cut in state PILOT (payments in lieu of taxes) to New Haven from $58.5 million to $55.9 million.
So the city can look to four places to make up that gap, DeStefano noted: seeking more state money; hiking taxes (not a politically viable option at the moment); seeking voluntary union concessions (which he’s doing); and cuts in city services.
DeStefano said he wanted to let the public know what those cuts would look like in order to promote an “honest” debate about how to avoid raising taxes. The cuts could (emphasis on “could,” not “would”) include closing two firehouses; cutting from 45 to 20 the number of new cops hired this coming year; and closing a library branch.
“I said [to city Librarian James Welbourne], ‘If we had to close a branch, what would it be?’ DeStefano said. Welbourne didn’t like the idea of closing a branch, according to the mayor, but identified Stetson as the likely target if one had to go, for two reasons: It’s closest to the downtown branch. And it has lower circulation numbers than other branches.
Welbourne couldn’t be reached for comment Monday.
DeStefano said that while closing a library or reducing the number of new cops could save money in the short-term, people would feel the effects over the longer term on the street. “Do you want bike patrols? How do we support youth if we’re cutting library services?”
“Stetson is a small part of a larger set of choices,” DeStefano said. “Part of a budget is making choices. Not all these things need to be done to” put the budget into balance.
“I’m not advocating that it be closed. But there’s also a constituency in New Haven that wants taxes to be cut. They’ve been prominently featured in the Independent. If we’re going to have a budget debate, it’s important that it be informed… It ought to be an honest debate.”
There are other measures besides circulation numbers to rate Stetson’s success, argued Diane Brown-Petteway (pictured), the branch librarian.
Stetson has as much or more community activity inside its modest walls than the other community branches, she said. Sixty kids a day do homework, use computers, or engage in other activities after school each day, she said.
Dozens of community organizations meet there, from book clubs and CTRibat to AIDS Project New Haven, GED classes, and a Saturday Youth Academy. Adults rely on the Internet-connected computers for job searches or information on higher education.
Mae Gibson-Brown (pictured) has watched the growing numbers of teens headed to Stetson in the afternoons from her front door across the parking lot, in the Florence Virtue homes.
Gibson-Brown is a retired teacher (and a founder and leader of the Salt and Pepper singing group). She’s helping organize the petition drive to save Stetson; volunteers can call her at 776-6888.
“Some of the violence has stopped,” she said. “But the Q House is gone. Now the library needs to go?”
Monday afternoon Gibson-Brown was cooking collards for part of a meal she’s preparing for this week’s gathering of the Saturday Youth Academy at Stetson. (Also on the menu: barbecued chicken, macaroni and cheese, candied yams.) Gibson-Brown was also plotting strategy with Sally Brown (pictured to her right), who runs the City Clerk’s Office.
Sally Brown (the sister of Stetson Librarian Brown-Petteway) remembered the Stetson branch from its earlier incarnation on Thompson Street.
She’s urging people in Dixwell to demand not just the preservation of their branch — but a new, larger home from the city. Stetson is too small to accommodate all the activity there, she said.
“We need a library. A library is a must in a neighborhood,” Brown said. “We can find money to raze the building downtown. We can find the money to do what we want in this city.”
Oh this is such a terrible idea and so lazy on the part of government to attack library services to address their budget. With the literacy problems affecting urban neighborhoods and the long term impact that has on students, I can't believe the Mayor thinks this is a good idea.