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http:// --> Ashland, Oregon HOME Valley & State Sports Nation & World Opinion/Editorial Classifieds Business Columnists Local Issues Obituaries Weather Archive Revels Etcetera Backpage Hot Topics Most Viewed Forum Photo Galleries Video Readers Polls O-Zone Online Games Movie Preview Special Sections Real Estate Guide Menu Guide Shakespeare Subscribe Contact Us Rate Card Place an Ad Featured Galleries: September 8, 2007 Outsourcing, privatization and a public trust By Chris Honoré Tidings Correspondent It's still hard to completely absorb: our own Ashland Library has been closed all these many months, through spring and now the waning days of summer. Residents shake their heads and mutter, insisting they still can't believe it. Think of it. Our library...all those libraries...15 in total... locked. It's a reality that bespeaks of priorities turned upside down, and of our failure to ask a fundamental question: Why do we have libraries? What do they mean to us and to the life of our community? Are they not the repositories of our democratic values, symbols of our cornerstone belief in the free and open exchange of ideas, places embedded with the conviction that all knowledge is valuable and all opinions have merit? Have we lost sight of the fact that an informed citizenry is essential to the discourse of our republic? "Libraries are part of our 'commons,' part of what makes us a democratic society," wrote Anne Billeter, former Jackson County Library Services Children's, Young Adult, and South Regional Manager, in an e-mail to the Tidings. "Libraries provide neutral access to information on every subject under the sun from every possible viewpoint. Libraries provide access to information that helps people make informed decision. Libraries protect our intellectual freedom." Recent letters and public comments say some folks are not sure they could live in place that doesn't have a library. We have often over these past few months asked the simple question: "Why?" And hearing a cobbled together tale of absent timber funds, Iraq, politics, county unpreparedness, we shake our heads and say, "Now what?" The "Now what?" has been answered by the county commissioners, at least for now. The answer is a solution that has generated robust, even hopeful debate, as well as outright anger. We have come to learn the county commissioners have all but finalized a contract with Library Systems & Services, LLC, a Maryland-based, privately owned company that will run the Jackson County libraries for $4.3 million annually with reduced weekly hours — Ashland has been allocated 24. During a special meeting last week, the Ashland city council voted to join the county with the provision that should Ashland's Measure 15-79 pass, the monies generated will be used solely to expand the truncated services, bringing the library as close as possible to a pre-April baseline. The concern, of course, is that to turn over a public trust — the remarkable county-wide system of symbiotic libraries — to a private enterprise, which has a core mission of turning a profit, will change the very essence of what it means to have a library that first serves the people. Patricia Glass Schuman wrote in the Library Journal (vol. 123), "Public libraries, by their very nature, are classic 'market failures' — as are highways, schools, police, firefighters, and national defense and security. They are not profitable activities that a free market place will support. Privatization is not a mere management tool; it is a grave public policy shift. Privatization advocates must be challenged. If the core democratic values of libraries are glossed over in the name of efficiency, economy, and creative management, how will the public interest be served?" LSSI operating the county's libraries is not "privatization"; rather, it is more accurately defined as "outsourcing" because ownership of the buildings and the collections, and the right to make policy will be retained by the county. Outsourcing is when a company, or in this case a public body, contracts out jobs or services, such as when a small business uses an accountant to do its taxes. Privitazation, on the other hand, is defined as, "transfer from public or government control or ownership to private enterprise." LSSI could not, for example, charge groups to use the meeting rooms without approval of the Board of Commissioners in a public hearing. Many who care about the Ashland Library, such as Friends of the Library and former library staff, who have worked tirelessly to open the doors, are deeply conflicted about this crossroads moment. As difficult as it might be to contemplate the LSSI take over, it is more difficult knowing that the doors remain closed. And so it is a painful bargain that has been struck wherein the doors will open and patrons will once again return, but down a divergent road of private management. "I believe libraries could use a healthy infusion of the kind of entrepreneurial thinking and decision-making that can come from a business model type of management," wrote John Sexton, Ashland's former Young Adult Librarian, in an e-mail to the Tidings. "I simply need more information at this point about how a private, for-profit management company can provide that model and protect the public in public library. "The libraries are closed," Sexton pointed out, "not because of mismanagement, but because of a political decision based on the inability of the county to address ongoing funding issues that were far bigger than the libraries." In fact, the numbers demonstrate that our libraries have delivered a superb county-wide program, coming in under budget while expanding the system. Had Ashland's City Council decided to "Go it Alone," one of four options contemplated, or chosen the "Hybrid Option," the separation (both legal and physical, e.g., who owns the building and the collection?) from the county might have been protracted and the library likely would have remained closed in the interim. "I believe that the option the City Council chose Monday was the best option for the city," wrote Billeter. "Augmenting the county's contract with LSSI will meet the intent of the City Council when it placed the library levy on the Sept. 18 ballot: It will get the Ashland Library open as soon as possible, at as close to the services and hours it had before the April closure. The other proposals were either too complex, unworkable, or would have provided an insufficient level of library services and hours." Of course, no one knows how this will work out. Not really. Government has "outsourced" to private companies for decades, and the results have been decidedly mixed: cost overruns, maleficence, fraud as well as some success stories. There is also the issue of transparency. Will LSSI open its books to the community in keeping with applicable "sunshine laws?" Reports have filtered up to Ashland from Riverside, Calif., where LSSI operates the Riverside County Library System. Jan Kuebel, manager of the Riverside Garden Home Branch, wrote in an e-mail to Ashland resident Maureen Battistella, "LSSI is transparent but 100 percent supportive. I absolutely love it. Customer satisfaction is what LSSI concentrates on. I know for Riverside County we are far better off." Battistella wrote, "Frankly, I think Ashland would fit this entrepreneurial model very well and the staff find a more receptive and responsive administration than they might have had before." First the passage of Measure 15-79. Then the compatibility of Ashland and LSSI can be assessed. As well, the city council has promised close and diligent oversight. "Go it Alone" is now the road not taken. Current Comments: Lets give LSSI a chance. Keep the city council far far way during that experiment. From the sound of some of them they want nothing better than to prove it won't work. 24 hours is enought while the county figures out how to fund the libraries two years from now. I have no guilt at voting no on this levy. Giving free reign to the city counil to muck up the county's plan makes no sense. DS - Ashland Oregon - September 8th, 4:39 PM Outsourcing has produced "some" success stories? How would you assess "insourcing", the steady growth and voraciousness of government at all levels over the past 75 years? Ashland has the highest taxes per capita in the state. Would anyone argue that it is appreciably better run for all that 'insourcing?" I say "Privatize or perish of bureaucratic ossification." Let's welcome LSSI with open arms, and vote NO! to more taxes and more government. John Locke - Ashland, OR - September 8th, 10:41 PM DS & John Locke: I agree completely. Lester Lester - Ashland OR - September 9th, 7:09 AM "John Locke" you say "Ashland has the highest taxes per capita in the state." Where's your source for that statement? When I took a look at the Oregon Department of Revenue, our Property Tax rate was no where near the highest. Look at this document - http://egov.oregon.gov/DOR/STATS/docs/303-405-07/303-405-07.pdf Steve Hauck - Ashland - September 9th, 10:34 AM Indeed, I was wrong. Ashland has the highest BUDGET per capita of all Oregon cities. Property tax RATES are not the highest, but due to inflated property values, revenues from utilities, tourist taxes, fees, etc., it has much more to spend than other cities. Are we getting our money's worth? John Locke - Ashland, OR - September 9th, 2:25 PM We are definitely not getting our money's worth, and I fail to understand the notion that a private contractor might do a *worse* job of mismanaging public resources. After all, they have a profit motive, whereas our government can just raise taxes or incur multi-million dollar debts. This situation would quite simply not exist if we had trimmed the fat from our own budget -- we knew for years that the gravy train wouldn't run forever, so we built a $70M building. Fiscally responsible choice? Richard Cranium - Ashland OR - September 9th, 8:59 PM All these brilliant minds out here in the northwest and there is no group that will step forward with some viable solutions. Do we really need to send more money out of state to achieve what we might do at home. Was there not enough warning over the past decade that this might occur. What will two more years gain the county. It sounds like their trying to pass the buck again. "All bad precedents begin as justifiable measures" Julius Caesar Steve Sirianni - Ashland, Oregon - September 10th, 1:35 AM And while we're at it, where is the VOTE NO campaign? Where are the yard signs, pamphlets, articles, etc.? Where were the arguments AGAINST the tax levy in the ballot? I am very pro-library. I just REFUSE to give people who have so grossly mismanaged my tax dollars even more authority to waste more of my money. So where's the backlash? Is it limited to these forums while the rest of society rushes to fill in the YES boxes? TaxedBeyondRecognition - Ashland, OR - September 10th, 8:47 AM Ashland's budget is $100 million dollars for approximately 20,000 residents, which works out to about $5000 per person. The highest per-capita budget award goes to the City of San Francisco ($8000 a head), beating out New York City ($7200 each). The above numbers are easily proven; they're simple facts derived from a spreadsheet. Now for the rhetorical question: where does all that money go? Richard Cranium - Ashland OR - September 10th, 12:54 PM Leave a Comment: Advertisement: Advertisement: Paid Advertising: Debt Help Inkjet Printers Payday Loans Free Ringtones Debt Consolidation Security Systems Debt Relief New Hampshire Primary Advertisement: Copyright © 2007 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers. All Rights Reserved. Del.icio.us