The troubles at the Santa Barbara city library branches are leaving what can only be described as a budgetary trail of tears. At the city's special meeting on Monday, June 12, the vote was to set the administrative fee charged to its branch libraries at 13.5 percent. In making their vote, with the exception of Councilmember Gregg Hart, who asked to hold off on the increase for a year, the councilmembers chose to work in the city's best interest. The city will be funding its Central and Eastside libraries by $4 million this coming fiscal year, an amount unmatched by other municipalities for their respective libraries.
Even that limited fee increase — the city was deciding on somewhere between 9 and 18 percent — sort of good for the library system but fairly bad for Solvang and Carpinteria branches, which would go into the red by $17,784 and $77,085, respectively, was nothing compared to the human toll resonating from the financial woes and administrative decisions.
During public comment, Tara O'Reilly, the recently retired Carpinteria head librarian, informed the council of the disrespect in the firing of many longtime library employees, one of whom received an $8,000 grant from the Fund for Santa Barbara on Tuesday to continue a program — Artesanía para La Familia (Family Arts & Crafts) — she'd started at the Carpinteria library. Suzanne Requejo told The Santa Barbara Independent that she'd been ordered to leave the library on the day her fifth-graders were arriving in anticipation of an arts-award and graduation ceremony. In shock, she was packing up her art supplies when her students overheard two people from the Central Library telling her she had five minutes to gather her things and leave. Kids have approached her since asking about her being fired, she said. Library Director Jessica Cadiente stated she could not comment on personnel matters and that she hadn't known about the award at the time.