by OB Joe
The library is an issue that regular Obcians will stand up to protect. When people in OB get it together – we get it together. We – people of OB – fought the City to a stand-off and prevented most of the jetty from being built, we prevented the City from selling Collier Park off for development and to this day it’s still a park – although it is deteriorating – , we worked with the City to establish the first democratically-elected planning board in the history of California, we wrote our own Precise Plan for development in OB – taking it out of the hands of big property owners and large commercial interests – , we prevented the Strand from becoming a porno theater, … the list goes on – oh, yeah, got to include that OB people got the City – thanks to OBGO and Donna Frye – to do a study of any potential toxic leakage out of the old municipal and industrial dump just east of SeaWorld;
OB people did all these things ! We saved our beach, we saved a beautiful neighborhood park, we got a popular handle on development, we tried to become and remain a true village. We’re not gonna let anyone close our library, period. Cut back a few hours along with all the other libraries, okay. But we can’t let them close our branch or ANY branch.
I don’t think I need to get into why we need our library, and why all the districts need their libraries. It should be plain to see, and easy to understand, that in economic hardtimes people need their public facilities, and especially their libraries even more than in more stable days. They are sources of information, education, and consolation. We won’t allow them to close our libraries.
And I will admit I have not actually been in the OB Library for a few months. But I don’t have to have been a recent visitor to know that there are lines at the door when it opens, that there are lines to use the computers all day, and that there is plenty of human activity within its walls all day long – and to understand that it is one of most valuable public resources we have.
For the seniors, for the kids from OB Elementary across the street, for those who don’t have the internet at home, for those who’ve canceled their newspaper or magazine subscription, for all the book lovers – we will not allow them to close our library. Once it’s closed, it’s closed, ‘temporary’ or not. I will personally stand in the door and non-violently block any attempt to close the library for good. We have to make a stand here and now. If not at the door of our library – where?
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Okay – and don’t forget the Child Care Center established, the saving of Dusty Rhodes Park, saving Famosa Slough all these years, making dog beach, and that residents put together the first CHEAP organic food store back in the early seventies. Not to mention some of the first anti-Iraq war protests were held in OB, back in the Fall of ’02, plus all the efforts to ‘shop locally’ and keep the heavyweight corporate franchises off the main street of Newport, the attempt to block StarBucks, plus OB responded when cops shot a homeless man for no good reason, plus the garden that was developed at the corner of Voltaire & Sunset Cliffs – although it was later bulldozed – and now look at it – Nice!
Usually residents of our fair community rise to the occasion when threatened. We’ll just have to see what happens here.