Opinion: Library funding: Measure L wins, but at the cost of public safety?
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As readers of our Opinion pages know, the editorial board was not in favor of Measure L, which commits a greater share of revenue to L.A.’s libraries. The decision didn’t have to do with a dislike for libraries; rather, the board felt strongly it was a bad solution to a difficult problem: “The problem with Measure L, though, is that it asks the question about library funding in artificial isolation. Dedicating more money to the library system without increasing overall city revenues means that other functions of city government will have to receive less.”
Measure L did, however, end up passing this week. Taking our side and expressing outrage is LA Observed’s Marc Lacter:
Look, I love public libraries -- really I do. And it’s painful to see their hours being reduced because of the city’s budget troubles. Not to mention less money being made available for collections and personnel. Just shouldn’t happen. But as an L.A. voter, I don’t want to be determining whether libraries have a higher priority than, say, parks or police or street-sweeping. That’s why Measure L was so misguided, and why its passage creates all sorts of complications for L.A.’s budget folks (whose lives are already complicated enough). Once again, a tiny percentage of voters (around 11 percent) has been given enormous clout in determining how the city’s finances should be managed -- and it’s just plain dumb. Not to belabor the obvious, but budgeting is a zero-sum game -- what gets committed for one department is taken away from another, and the considerations behind those decisions are not always as simple as they appear.
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