On Tuesday, the City Council in Mesquite voted to adopt a new budget for the upcoming year. Part of the proposal included closing the North Branch Library and consolidating materials with the nearby Florence Recreation Center. Mesquite’s Main Branch Library, located roughly six miles from the North Branch, will remain open and fully operational.
It’s a blow to the neighborhood and the people who live there that regularly rely on the library’s books and services. Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Elizabeth Rodriguez-Ross was against the closure and spoke openly about what it would mean for residents during the City Council meeting.
Rodriguez-Ross said, “I am aware that publicly we’re calling this closure an expansion, but a reduced level of services, a reduced level of staffing and a smaller space is hardly what I would call an expansion. And I think a better word would be injustice.”
The budget was unanimously approved by the City Council, but Rodriguez-Ross went on the record to say it was not a unanimous decision to deliver “a death blow to the North Branch Library.”
In previous meetings, she was vocal about how a closure made little sense in the grand scheme of things given that Mesquite isn’t currently in a deficit. It was also made clear that the consolidated resources at Florence Recreation Center simply wouldn’t be enough to properly service and support the surrounding community.
Cliff Kehely, Mesquite’s city manager, spoke with KERA News about this previously, saying, “We don’t have anything in our southern sector and there’s a large population out there that doesn’t have access to these services.” It’ll take several months for the closure and consolidation to take place, but the unfortunate reality is that it is happening.
Will North Branch Library services be maintained?
City Council members have stated that closing the North Branch Library and consolidating it with the Florence Recreation Center will inevitably be a positive thing for the community.
Operating hours will be extended, and promises were made to establish a mobile library to help ferry books directly to people in Mesquite. When the idea was originally proposed, Mesquite City Council Place 1 Jeff Casper spoke with WFAA about the expansion.
Casper said, “I think we can meet the needs that folks expect from library services in a more efficient way with actually more geographic reach to residents across the whole city.” Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Elizabeth Rodriguez-Ross, however, isn’t confident that will be the case. Her concerns have been echoed by residents who similarly voiced their opposition to the consolidation plan.
One of those locals, Elenora Esquivel, said, “If you’re taking our library away, you’re taking a lot of good resources away. You take my hope away. You take my little peace away.” It’s an especially tough pill to swallow because the city is likely set to close two recreation centers in the future, further eliminating third places in the community and isolating people who rely on those resources in doing so.
This article first appeared on Good Info News Wire and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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