PPL: Mayor ‘opts out’ of pact with library

PROVIDENCE – The Providence Public Library and the City of Providence have failed to establish a new process for funding and administering city library services, library executives announced last night.
The city administration and the PPL last summer approved a tentative four-year contract that included a one-time gift to the city of $1.3 million. (READ MORE) But that agreement also called for planning of a reconfigured, sustainable library system to be finalized by year’s end and implemented by July.
And although the contract was negotiated in July and approved by the City Council in November, it was never signed by the city, the PPL said.
But mayor’s office contested that claim: “The truth is that the mayor signed the library agreement in August of 2008,” Cicilline’s press secretary, Karen Southern said in a statement today.

“The PPL board is required under the agreement to submit a sustainable plan for library services and it failed to do so,” Southern added. “Their offering, by their own admission, leaves the system insolvent in two years, so the mayor rejected it.”

Meanwhile, “the library has been funding the cost of maintaining existing services this year, as envisioned by the council-approved agreement, and paying for a deficit projected to exceed $1 million out of the library’s endowment,” the PPL said. The library added that the city is “withholding Master Lease money that was to flow to the library to help pay the current fiscal year’s expenses.”

Now, the library said, Cicilline has notified the PPL that he wants to pursue a different process.
Library officials are reviewing their options and plans for the next fiscal year, the PPL said. But the absence of an agreement with the city leaves open many questions about the future relationship between the library system and its longtime partner.

The PPL, although it serves as a public library, is a private nonprofit organization. It owns and operates its Central Library, on Empire Street, and provides additional services, including the operation of the nine-branch neighborhood library system with funding from the city and the state. Its budgeting and financing, however, long have been a point of contention between the city and the library system.
A Library Partnership Advisory Committee – with members from the city, the PPL and the community – was established in 2007 to help resolve those issues.
Ideas considered by that panel have included alternate building uses, co-location of facilities and “dedicated private funding for neighborhood space and operations,” the PPL said last summer. Library officials said that PPL also would “consider the donation of books, materials, computers and even buildings – an additional gift worth millions of dollars.”
In December, faced with a continuing funding shortfall, the PPL Board of Trustees voted to shutter five of the nine neighborhood branches as of June 30, to help create a “sustainable library system.” (READ MORE)
Targeted were the Fox Point, Smith Hill, Olneyville, Wanskuck and Washington Park branches, the latter of which has been shuttered for renovations since 2006, which the PPL trustees proposed might be transformed into “city- or community-owned and operated Neighborhood Learning Centers” for after-school activities and public computer access.”
A group of city residents then came together to establish a new nonprofit organization, called the Providence Community Library (PCL), to take over the support and management of any branches that were severed from the PPL system. That new organization “has garnered some support from members of the public and City Council,” according to the PPL, which said it has offered to work with the city to determine whether it provides a viable alternative.
“The focus for everyone involved needs to be on finding the best way to provide library service in the city,” PPL Chairman William Simmons said in a statement last night. “We remain open to ongoing discussions on how to achieve that goal and have communicated to the mayor our willingness to work with him and the City Council.”

But Southern today condemned the PPL’s announcement as “another effort by the leadership of the private, nonprofit Providence Public Library to achieve its longtime goal of closing the neighborhood branches.” Cicilline, she said, “is committed to preventing that from happening. … He has continued to seek to preserve the 120-year-old partnership and has insisted on branch services that residents deserve.”

The Providence Public Library is a 130-year-old private, nonprofit organization that serves as a public library for the City of Providence, providing free information resources, education and community services. It also operates the Statewide Reference Resource Center, serving all Rhode Islanders with educational, cultural enrichment and economic advancement opportunities. To learn more, visit www.ProvLib.org.
Providence Community Library is a nonprofit established by city residents to take over the support and management of Providence’s neighborhood libraries should the city and the PPL fail to reach agreement that would keep all nine branches open. To learn more, visit www.ProvidenceCommunityLibrary.org.
For news and information from the City of Providence, visit www.ProvidenceRI.com.