Library and sister cities arguing over Civic Center benches
Library and sister cities arguing over Civic Center benches
n By Matt King
Staff Writer
Morgan Hill – It’s not yet Benchgate, but a disagreement about the use of the plaza in front of the new library is becoming a full-fledged controversy, pitting the city’s library commission against the group that promotes Morgan Hill’s sister cities.
At issue is the use of benches that will be placed around Civic Center Plaza when the library opens next spring. The city’s library commission wants the benches, which will be designed to resemble stacked books, to be dedicated solely to the library.
But the Sister City Association wants to use the space to promote its activities, and its members are upset at what they saw as the library commission’s effort to freeze the group out of a final decision by the city council.
“We were really kind of shocked when we discovered that the library commission decided that was the way to go,” Sister City Association Secretary George Nale said. “We had no knowledge they were thinking about not letting us use the plaza benches.”
The association wants the benches to be fashioned with slots or some other appurtenance that it could use to display information about its events or photographs of Morgan Hill’s three sister cities in Ireland, Italy and Mexico.
Members of the library commission, though, think such displays will take the focus away from the library. They’ve been joined by Friends of the Morgan Hill Library, who are opposed to using any portion of the library’s $17 million budget for other purposes.
“It’s not that I have any problem with the sister cities group, they just don’t have any connection to what’s there,” said Charles Cameron, vice chairman of the commission. “We thought the benches could be made to look like library books and be representative of library themes. Being adjacent to the library, it’s a place where people will come on a nice summer day and read.”
And commission members thought the matter was settled. They expected the city council to approve their plan last week, without debate, but Nale was able to delay the council vote and send the question back to the library commission.
“I lucked out,” Nale said of learning just before the meeting that the vote was about to take place. He said the alternative he hears most often – to install sister city displays at the Community and Cultural Center – isn’t viable because there’s no extra room in the center’s budget.
“There’s funding for the benches at the library,” he said. “We haven’t talked about any other place in town. We view the plaza as more a part of the civic center than specifically the library.”
Councilman Larry Carr said he was disappointed to see two civic-minded groups in conflict.
“We want it to be more than a concrete slab and I think we have a couple of groups who have different ideas about what it should be,” Carr said. “I certainly don’t think these are insurmountable things. If these were the biggest problems we had in the city we’d be in great shape.”
Members of both groups say they’re willing to forge a new agreement on the benches. Library commission chairman Einar Anderson said the dispute has been “blown up out of proportion,” but does believe the community wants the space dedicated to the library.
“Just because it’s primarily the library doesn’t mean it would preclude anything about our sister cities. There’s no reason you can’t have benches with plaques from our sister cities,” Anderson said. “We polled the public, we put off the decision, we went to Taste of Morgan Hill and got a pretty good idea of what people wanted. They said they wanted things that were library-oriented.”
The library commission will take up the matter again Monday, Dec. 12, at 7:15pm, at Morgan Hill City Hall.
