Since as far back as 1991, the Park Ridge Library has been whining about not having enough space. 

Back then, in the heat of a Library expansion referendum campaign, the Library staff piled books on the floors to create the false impression that there wasn’t enough shelf space to hold them.  But as soon as the voters rejected the expansion proposal and there was no need to continue that charade, those books mysteriously vanished.

Several years later, the Library Board’s and Staff’s edifice complex was resurrected with plans for Uptown Redevelopment – and the suggestion by then-City Mgr. Tim Schuenke that a new Library could be rolled into that TIF-financed project.  So while Board and Staff deferred needed maintenance and repairs on the existing building, the Uptown Advisory Task Farce included a new Library in its deliberations.

Fast forward to 2002, when plans for a new Library were steaming ahead to the point where the City distributed promotional materials about our community at a national convention that mentioned a new library as if it were a fait accompli.  That kind of arrogance ticked off plenty of citizens, who appealed to members of the City Council to pass a resolution putting an advisory Library referendum on the November 2002 ballot.

When the Council declined, a group of citizen activists conducted a petition drive that collected over 3,700 signatures and put three Library–related issues on the ballot: whether a new library should be built on the current site; whether a new one should be built on a different site; and whether retail should be added to the Library block.

The voters overwhelmingly rejected all three.

But ever since that November 2002 defeat, the Library Board and Staff have been trying to come up with a new scheme to get a bigger building.  Their latest: Create a shortage of staff space by converting some of that space into more room for kids programs, and then tack on a cheesy-looking office trailer or “modular building” to hold the displaced staffers.  

Librarian Janet Van De Carr’s explanation: “We get a lot of requests from parents to provide more programs for children, but right now we have the one library meeting room that must be shared with young adult programs as well as community groups, so we can’t offer any more than we’re offering now.”  

Of course you’ll get “a lot of requests” for kids programs, especially free ones.  We seem to have plenty of parents who want their kids to be as programmed as possible, especially if somebody else (i.e., the taxpayers) is paying for it.  And for the Library Board and Staff, it’s a great way to increase those usage totals they use to argue for that bigger Library that has never left their radar screen. 

But the best part of this plan for the Library Administration is that it will create an “eyesore” – as an office trailer or “modular building” is likely to do – that they expect to be so offensive and irritating to enough Park Ridge residents that it will start a groundswell of support for a new Library, or at least a decent-sized addition.

Actually, it’s a pretty clever scheme, and the Library Crew is pretty devious to come up with it.  The only question is whether the taxpayers are dumb enough to fall for it.