Skip ads and navigation
Advertising
Our network sites seattlepi.comHelp

Library Board unfairly criticized on bookkeeping

Friday, November 19, 1999

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD

City Councilman Peter Steinbrueck has come to the defense of Seattle library officials who are being unfairly criticized for doing the right thing.

The right thing in this case is keeping the accounting straight on a $20 million gift from Bill and Melinda Gates. The $235 million Libraries for All project will rebuild the city library system. From the start the plan included $25 million to be raised from private sources to help pay for new construction and renovation of existing buildings.

The Gateses asked that $15 million of their gift help pay for construction, with the remaining $5 million to be applied to book acquisition and services to special populations. Accordingly, the Library Board has asked the City Council to authorize allocating $15 million of the Gateses' gift to the budget for the neighborhood branches.

To keep the books balanced, the Library Board is asking the City Council to transfer a like $15 million from the neighborhood branches to the central library project.

Some critics claim there will be less money for neighborhood branches and more for the downtown library.

They are mistaken. It's a wash. The budgets for the branches ($76 million) and the central library ($159 million) are being adjusted to account for the Gateses' gift. And the Gates Foundation, in support of the Library Board, has stated the gift was not meant to boost one capital budget at the expense of the other.

If this flap over a bookkeeping step sounds like a tempest in a teapot, it is. But it is not without consequences.

Steinbrueck is concerned that it may scare off potential private donors who don't want adverse publicity. "These are dedicated people on the board, who have great integrity and expertise and they are being wrongly criticized," he said.

Second-guessing is part and parcel of Seattle politics. But criticism of the Library Board in this case is unwarranted.

OUR AFFILIATES
NWsource KOMO
Pacific Publishing

Seattle Post-Intelligencer
101 Elliott Ave. W.
Seattle, WA 98119
(206) 448-8000

Home Delivery: (206) 464-2121 or (800) 542-0820
seattlepi.com serves about 1.7 million unique visitors
and 30 million page views each month.

Send comments to newmedia@seattlepi.com
Send investigative tips to iteam@seattlepi.com
©1996-2008 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Terms of Use/Privacy Policy

Hearst Newspapers