What’s happening?<\/p>\n
In City Manager Tom Modica’s proposed budget, Bay Shore, Burnett, El Dorado, Harte, and Michelle Obama would each operate five days a week instead of six.<\/p>\n
That would bring back Monday closures at those branches, even though city figures show that a little more than 1,000 people use them on Mondays, as reported by the Long Beach Post.<\/p>\n
The same proposal trims staffing and other library spending: 14 positions would be cut, 11 of them occupied, along with funding for the pages who shelve books, security services, and most newspaper subscriptions in print and digital form.<\/p>\n
Those changes together are expected to reduce library costs by slightly more than $1.4 million.<\/p>\n
The timing is notable because library use is increasing rather than falling.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Long Beach’s 12 branches now average more than 2,800 visitors a day, up 8%, and programming is up 50%.<\/p>\n
Why does it matter?<\/p>\n
Beyond books, branches<\/a> are places to get a library card, attend workshops, find research assistance, and join creative programs, staffed by people who know frequent visitors personally.<\/p>\n At Billie Jean King Library, librarian Elizabeth Cespuglio told the Long Beach Post that the loss of positions would further burden branches that are already thinly staffed.\u00a0<\/p>\n The jobs on the chopping block support core operations such as checkouts, information desks, materials organization, and public programming.<\/p>\n One of the people affected is Jasmin Flores, working both in the system’s teen specialist role and as a mental health associate. Her work centers on young patrons facing challenges such as homelessness, past time in juvenile detention, food insecurity, or isolation.<\/p>\n “It honestly breaks my heart that I probably will not be in that position anymore,” Flores said.<\/p>\n What’s being done?<\/p>\n The proposal is already drawing opposition from residents, labor groups, and supporters<\/a> of the library system.<\/p>\n Kristen Hernandez of the Long Beach Public Library Foundation said the nonprofit has collected more than 1,800 signatures on a petition opposing the cuts.<\/p>\n Labor is organizing, too.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sashi Muralidharan, a labor representative with IAM Local 1930, said the union will “fight for every job” as it negotiates over the fallout from the proposed layoffs.<\/p>\n The library changes are part of a wider city plan that could result in layoffs of more than 260 workers and the elimination of more than 200 vacant positions.<\/p>\n According to the Long Beach Post, Mayor Rex Richardson has proposed restoring 70 of the positions marked for elimination.<\/p>\n After public hearings and the city’s online budget survey, the City Council must adopt a final budget by Oct. 1.<\/p>\n “Many have been laid off already,” city nurse and union negotiator Nate Kim told council members.<\/p>\n Hernandez warned that the stakes could extend beyond the reductions.<\/p>\n “In a city the size of Long Beach, and with our population, we could be seeing a 2027 where there are no libraries open on Monday,” she said. “I think that’s pretty crazy.”<\/p>\n Get TCD’s free newsletters<\/a> for easy tips, smart advice, and a chance to earn $5,000 toward home upgrades. To see more stories like this one, change your Google preferences here<\/a>.<\/p>\n \t\t\t![\"Cool](\"https:\/\/www.thecooldown.com\/wp-content\/themes\/tcd\/assets\/images\/divider-icon-earth.svg\"){kind=icon}
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Long Beach’s budget crunch could soon mean fewer library hours, fewer librarians, and less support for young people…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":434138,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[39439,165334,647,413,1073,131,133,132,5764],"class_list":["post-434137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-bad-news","tag-bad-policy-news","tag-books","tag-food","tag-home","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-yahoo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}