From: "Bill Widmer"
Date: October 18, 2011 7:26:20 AM PDT
To: "'Valerie Gardner'"
Subject: RE: Library Steering Committee
Hi Valerie
Thank you for your comments and the effort you put into this. I am very disappointed that this opportunity for the town has become such a focal point for anger and disagreement.
I am not in favor of providing any additional green space in the park to any project. That is the key thing I have heard from the residents, many of whom are signing petitions.
You are correct that I have asked for details of who attended the meetings and their comments, when I was the deciding vote on moving things forward for the additional community outreach sessions. I like you have been told about the people’s comments but have not seen anything.
I do not know how this will go for me. However, I am appreciative of your insight and perspective.
Bill
From: Valerie Gardner
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2011 11:02 AM
To: Bill Widmer
Subject: Library Steering Committee
Dear Bill,
I usually like to stay out of town politics—being almost entirely focused on the environmental issues—but I feel the need to share my thoughts with you. I know you have a very keen sense of effective management and you want to do a good job for the town. I do too, and that's why I am finding it astounding that the Library Steering Committee is already poised to recommend to the council that the library should be built in the park. We know that they have not taken public sentiment into account—but rather they have proceeded according to their own pre-determined plan. I want to strongly urge you not to let the politics of this situation permit this mistake be made by the powerful "Library-friendly" forces in town. Because the Library Steering Committee has totally NOT done a fair and impartial job of evaluating the needs and preferences of the Town's Residents, there will be quite a lot of fall-out and probably the very costly litigation kind and it makes no sense to rush this process and permit that to happen.
You attended the same "Community Workshop" as I did and saw what was happening there. You saw the objections and the arguments put forth by residents about not wanting the library taking up precious park space. You saw the many great ideas floated at that meeting about how to fit the library into the current spaces of town center real estate. You also saw how the members of the steering committee defended their process and their "objectivity" while without very much hesitation, arguing for the park option.
I don't know if you realized but I was asked to be a member of the Steering Committee towards the beginning for the purpose of helping them design a green building and I accepted, having been assured by Denise Kupperman that they were not going to impose their will on the town but actually bring into the process real community input. She insisted that there could be no effective solution that was not something that the town residents really wanted and felt ownership for. Over the course of about 8 months, I learned that the committee was in lock-step towards the goal of the library in the park and they were not abiding any dissent, from within the committee or without. I saw that my desire to have a truly objective assessment process was not the way the committee worked. I am sorry to report that they were downright hostile towards my point of view (things like not instructing the architects to favor one solution over another, which they infected them with their preferences, even prior to selecting the architects). So I resigned with real frustration in May.
Then I thought at the Community Workshop in June, that due to the hefty amount of objections raised by a broad array of residents, the committee was going to have to re-think its plan. I asked the liaison from Group 4 to get me a summary of their "findings" from that workshop. She agreed but never sent anything. None of the summaries of the meetings or the lists of attendees have been posted on the web site. In fact, there has been almost zero visibility into their process or "decision-making." Yet, without accounting in any way for the massive objections that were raised, this committee is going ahead to recommend what they realize most residents object to! It is already causing a real uproar, which is just what Denise assured me the committee was going to work to avoid causing.
Unfortunately, I can tell you that there are multiple groups independently organizing efforts to oppose the library committee's plans and most people think having both the Library committee and the Town Center committee working independently is just foolish. I am also one that would like to see these efforts united for our common good. I am also opposed to a park location because I see no reason not to keep the library where we have our town center (the library is one very important anchor for our town) and our transit hub, where workers and visitors can arrive by train: in the park, everyone would have to drive to get there. I have repeatedly voiced these concerns and others to Denise and her committee but have had no sense of satisfaction on any of my points.
I am sure there are plenty of good arguments pro and con but I would like to urge you to do the smart thing and not allow the library committee to move the library to where the library people want it but to place the library where the town and its residents want it. I have been told by numerous supporters of both McKeithen and Dobbie that, despite years of supporting them, they are very disheartened by their actions on this matter. We have to have a process that allows residents to weigh in and to understand how the decision is being made—and neither of these has really happened. I can tell you very definitely that the "Needs Assessment" that is cited so often for having to increase the size of the library, had only 69 Atherton residents responding and MOST all of them loved the current library both where and how it is. They didn't want it to become a much larger library. The entire argument for building a new library comes from the Library people themselves, not the town residents. You need to read the Needs Assessment report and see how manipulated the information is by the Library team, before you agree to the Steering Committee's recommendation.
Thanks for listening!
—Valerie Gardner
