{"id":258586,"date":"2026-04-20T23:26:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T23:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/258586\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T23:26:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T23:26:08","slug":"dallas-halts-plan-to-close-neighborhood-libraries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/258586\/","title":{"rendered":"Dallas halts plan to close neighborhood libraries"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p data-v-871f4c88=\"\">DALLAS &#8211; The city of Dallas is backing off from plans to close neighborhood libraries. But a plan to create several flagship locations with increased hours may still move forward.<\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"KDFW\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-871f4c88=\"\">The backstory:<\/p>\n<p data-v-871f4c88=\"\">The city\u2019s proposed budget calls for a $2.6 million reduction in library funds.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-v-871f4c88=\"\">The initial plan was to close neighborhood libraries and create longer hours at a few flagship locations.<\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"KDFW\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-871f4c88=\"\">What&#8217;s new:<\/p>\n<p data-v-871f4c88=\"\">Results from a survey showed that most Dallas residents don\u2019t want their neighborhood library to close. So, Dallas leaders went back to the drawing board.<\/p>\n<p data-v-871f4c88=\"\">Councilman Adam Bazaldua suggested the city use the $3.3 million generated from the sale of the Skillman Library to help buy the library department more time.<\/p>\n<p data-v-871f4c88=\"\">Dallas Library Director Manya Shorr said she believes she will be able to reduce the library department\u2019s budget through a gradual transition to more part-time employees, which would allow more flexibility with library hours.<\/p>\n<p data-v-871f4c88=\"\">She also proposed adding passport offices to flagship locations to help generate about $100,000 per year per location.<\/p>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/V_TX-HB-900-COURT-HEARING-4A_00.00.27.44.jpg\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" fetchpriority=\"auto\" data-v-2fe2fe3e=\"\"\/>  <\/p>\n<p data-v-871f4c88=\"\">The city could use bond funds by opening up the Park Forest and North Oak Cliff libraries to mixed-use housing developers who might want to build apartment complexes on the sites.<\/p>\n<p data-v-871f4c88=\"\">Or, Councilman Chad West believes the city could benefit from public-private partnerships at some locations.<\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"KDFW\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-871f4c88=\"\">What they&#8217;re saying:<\/p>\n<p data-v-871f4c88=\"\">&#8220;We\u2019re going to be looking at a $5.4 billion budget. Shame on us if we can\u2019t find the $2 million your department needs to keep operating,&#8221; West said.<\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"KDFW\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-871f4c88=\"\">What we don&#8217;t know:<\/p>\n<p data-v-871f4c88=\"\">One library that was noticeably absent from Monday\u2019s discussions was the largest library in the state. The Central Library Downtown is 650,000 square feet.<\/p>\n<p data-v-871f4c88=\"\">It\u2019s not even listed as a regional flagship.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"group-source-paragraph\" data-v-4fbf7207=\"\">The Source: The information in this story comes from comments made during the Dallas City Council&#8217;s Quality of Life committee meeting on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox4news.com\/tag\/organization\/dallas-council\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-871f4c88=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Dallas City Council<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox4news.com\/tag\/us\/tx\/dallas-county\/dallas\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-871f4c88=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Dallas<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DALLAS &#8211; The city of Dallas is backing off from plans to close neighborhood libraries. But a plan&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":258587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,10821,581,104,103,223,1827,216,393],"class_list":{"0":"post-258586","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-dallas","9":"tag-dallas-council","10":"tag-dallas-county","11":"tag-dallas-headlines","12":"tag-dallas-news","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-organization","15":"tag-tx","16":"tag-us"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}