It has begun. San Diego’s recent budget battle has now reached Ocean Beach and Point Loma.
It started on Saturday, August 29th — over a dozen San Diego recreation centers had their operating hours cut drastically — including the Ocean Beach Rec Center. Hours were cut from 60 to only 40 hours — that’s 33% — a third!
Other rec centers with these kind of cuts include La Jolla, Ocean Air, Pacific Beach, North Clairemont, Canyonside, Carmel Mountain Ranch/ Sabre Springs, Hilltop, Rancho Bernardo Glassman, Scripps Ranch Community, Kearny Mesa, Allied Gardens, and Tierrasanta.
These drops in a third of the hours opened were the results of the $118 million budget shortfall that the electeds couldn’t deal with. And they may mean that community groups – like the OB Planning Board – will have to find alternative locations.
In addition, six city libraries will see operational changes — including Point Loma. It and three others will lose some Saturday hours, dropping from 51 hours a week to 47. These include Central, La Jolla and Rancho Bernardo libraries. Also, University Heights and Allied Gardens libraries will no longer be open on Mondays, reducing their weekly hours to 42.5.
The Ocean Beach library was not included in any of these cuts because it closed on the 29th for its expansion and won’t be open again until the summer of 2028/
Initially Mayor Todd Gloria initially proposed reducing hours at nine additional rec centers — including Robb Field — but the City Council restored funding for those locations, ensuring they retain a 60-hour week. Those other centers included Carmel Valley, Pacific Highlands Ranch, Gil Johnson Mira Mesa, Hourglass Field, Nobel Athletic Fields, and Standley.
Ironically, three rec centers — North Park, Mira Mesa, and Linda Vista — were slated for hour reductions but will now maintain their current 51-hour schedules following the City Council’s changes.
One of the great levelers in our increasingly unfair and unequal society has been public libraries. Even the robber barons of old were aware of the positive impact of public libraries on the psyche of working public. Andrew Carnegie, the strikebreaking steel magnate of the late 20th Century who hired snipers and staffed water cannons that blasted boiling liquid on strikers, became a hated man for his selfish and judgmental attitude toward working people. He crafted a more benevolent reputation in history by building public libraries and providing something that bettered about 1,600 communities large and small in the U.S. He knew that public libraries are among the most positive aspects of public services, a place in which the true wealth of human life is stored and made accessible to everyday people. And just as happened with many of the Carnegie libraries which, once built, were left to be staffed and supported by taxpayers, the public library budgets then and now have been carved up, sliced up, stolen from, and neglected by public officials who seem inured to the public’s need for one of the greatest resources we have ever had to improve ourselves and the communities in which we live. Shame on this short-sighted leadership. But shame on us for not fighting for our libraries.
Thank you, Joni, for your comments and for your view of a service that benefits everyone, rich and poor, and for which we should all be proud. “[Libraries] are about what a society decides should be publicly accessible regardless of personal wealth.” They are also about a learning community “watering hole” for all of us–hobbies, traveling through the eyes of authors, an addendum to school subjects and way more! Libraries are shared public spaces which promote literacy and curiosity. They belong to us, and not only should we protect them, we should demand more of them, longer open hours, more funding as a public need. Joni, I think you are right on “…shame on us for not fighting for OUR {emphasis mine} libraries.”
Point Loma and Ocean Beach are always “sisters under the skin,” and reducing hours in the Point Loma Library while closing the Ocean Beach library certain reduces opportunities for, well, reading books. Maybe the city thinks nobody does that anymore anyhow.
What happens to the OB library people during the remake? Couldn’t they let them work at Point Loma and not reduce hours?