State of Florida 2014 Midterms: Early Voting in Tamarac

Used to live here in Tamarac, when I worked for the library system between 1994-2003.  I'm visiting today for personal reasons - to absent friends - but needed a place to wait for the afternoon services and so as a librarian would I made my way to the local branch.

I forgot a lot of the Broward libraries offer themselves up for Early Voting polling areas.  Tamarac branch no exception.

What was nice was running into a set of volunteers for the local and state issues on the ballots: you know, the sign-wavers standing outside of the 75-foot perimeter away from the front door.  Especially a group of pro-Amendment 2 canvassers:

Big props to anyone and everyone who's taking the time to canvass the polling places anywhere out there in Florida (and all other states) this time of year.  This is civic participation, this is the free speech and public assembly the Founders wanted for their posterity.

Inside they've taken a whole corner of the library floor to set up the polling booths, with an elaborate queuing line into a meeting room where the optiscanners and ID stations are set up.  I don't think I can take pictures of it, only to tell you that they've got more polling booths set up here than I've ever seen at any other Early Voting spot in the last 12 years.  And this is just Tamarac: the other libraries must be set up the same way.  Have to expect a lot of people, I suppose...

It's a cloudy day today, threatening to rain and all.  Weather gets to be like this in late October in South Florida.  Still, today's a good day to GET THE VOTE OUT FLORIDA!  Don't forget to vote YES on 1, YES on 2, NO on 3, YES on Crist and NO on every Republican from Rick "I Ain't Testifying Today, Judge" Scott down.

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Anniversary: North Regional Libraries, Where I Began...

cross-posted with my librarianship/writing blog:

Twenty years ago, on May 9th, I started my first full-time job.

It was a new library building in a new type of library: a hybrid large-public/community college library that supported the public reading (popular titles) and the academic (research books and journals).

It started just as the Internet exploded on the scene, before emailing took off and the demands for computer use increased.  Back then the job was answering questions and finding articles off these newly networked online databases and making sure nobody was looking at porn in the far corners of the second floor.

It was my first full-time job.  I had a workdesk and a staff lounge with new furniture and carpeting and chairs with rollers and everything (except a computer at each workdesk: computers back then were expensive, we had to share a staff computer to get work done).

So much has changed over those twenty years.  Nowadays I suspect most of the college students and the public will come in with their own laptops and tablets to use instead of the public machines.  I'd like to think the circulation numbers at North Regional has kept up (there *is* a nice-sized retirement community across the street so...), although Northwest Regional *was* the circ-checkout king of the system when I left Broward Libraries in 2003...

I hope to go back this year to the library's 20th anniversary.  It started when I did.  I'd like to go back and see who's left, who's coming back like I am, who's saying farewells and all...

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#LibJobShadowFL Today (Update)

Let me Tweet to Mah Peoples!

Follow me on Twitter @PaulWartenberg, and keep up with the hashtags #LibJobShadowFL and #NLW (or #NLW14) and with anything librarianship today!  Support your libraries!

@FLA (Florida Library Association) too.

And I'll find out about why our Bartow Public Library driveway was blockaded over the Easter Weekend by abandoned RV Campers!  #DefendTheLibrary

UPDATE: I finished my run today on tweeting about working at the Bartow Library.  You can check it out on Twitter via this link here.

That said, some documentation is in order...

For some reason over Easter weekend, a pair of free-range RV Campers were abandoned on the driveway into the library and city civic center (the grassy area where the tents are is Mosaic Park).  Someone wanted to blockade the library.  The RVs were moved eventually, but the mystery surrounding this event remains unsolved...

On Monday afternoons I teach computer class.  Basic computing skills for the community of Bartow and surrounding cities.  Today was Teh Intertubes!  Many thanks to the attendees for being patient while I tweeted a few time during class (got to teach them Twitter in the process).

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Current Status 04/20/14

Just to note a few things:

1) Still working at the library.  I will be part of an all-day Twitter posting this Monday Apr. 21st to promote librarianship for Florida Library Association.  It's called @LibJobShadowFL and we have librarians who update their ongoing duties: working Check Out desks, cataloging, ordering new materials, and hosting / teaching events.  Hashtag is #libjobshadowFL and don't be surprised to see #NLW for National Library Week (which technically was last week but this jobs events is a two-week deal).

2) When I updated my XLibris account (publisher of my short story anthology Last of the Grapefruit Wars) due to my recent move, I realized I still had on order a purchased book publication.  So two things now: A) finish writing SOMETHING in book format to use up the purchase, and B) FINISH WRITING SOMETHING /headdesk

I tried getting something typed up this Good Friday/Easter weekend but... gah, too many distractions.  ...no, that's not fair.  Shouldn't blame the lack of time.  Should blame meself: half the time I'm sitting here at a keyboard yelling at myself for trying to write a story and yet the story just... doesn't seem right... the ideas in my head are one thing, but the words don't seem right on the screen.  I'm lacking the confidence to get something writ wrote righted.

3) Gotta keep reminding folks to GET THE DAMN VOTE OUT.  Well, gotta remain consistent about this stuff somewhere...

So, if anything, keep track of me this Monday!  My Twitter handle is @PaulWartenberg and the hashtags are #libjobshadowFL, #nlw, #libraries, #Floridalibraries, #ILikeCheese, #TheNorthRemembers, #FireSchiano (wait, that's been done) and #RickScottIsACrook.  ...what?  Okay, okay, I'll tweet the anti-Scott stuff later... sheesh...

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Quick Notes From the Sunshine State Asylum

While I'm heading into Post #500 (this one will be #493), I feel the need to pass along a few good news, bad news, WTF news from the great state of Florida.

• The Miami-Dade government made a "last-minute" move to NOT make massive cuts into the county library system by pulling funds from a "rainy day" reserve.  This is good... for a year, at which point the issue of funding libraries will come back up again.  Hint to Miami-Dade: try a bond issue, it worked wonders in neighboring Broward County over a decade ago.
• Rick "F-ck Florida" Scott issued a directive this week to county health care offices that the "navigators" made available by Obamacare to assist state residents figure out their health care plans would not be able to perform such outreach in those health care offices.  Essentially making it harder for the navigators to do anything to help anyone.  There's already been push-back by one of the counties that's gotten direct funding to hire some navigators, but it's pretty clear Scott and his ilk are doing everything possible to obstruct the health care reform efforts.
• Speaking of Rick "Too Self-Serving To Know He's Being Dumb" Scott, he had a fundraiser scheduled in the form of a $25,000 per person alligator hunt.  The campaign had to quickly cancel it not just because of the suddenly intense media interest in the story but because it turns out that alligator hunting licenses were strictly limited and only gained by lottery system.  You'd think someone in his office would have Farking done some research on this.
• George Zimmerman is back in the news regarding a possible domestic violence incident with his separated-seeking-divorce wife.  There's been conflicting stories, a damaged iPad, and an exasperated sheriff quickly tired of Zimmerman's sh-t.  For anyone who had a betting pool on when Zimmerman was gonna snap and do something dumber and more violent, it looks like anyone with September or October of this very year is in line for the win.
• This joker - the one who burned a Quran and started a global riot in the process - was arrested this 9/11 anniversary time while he was en route to a Polk County park to set fire to 2999 more Qurans.  Turns out preachers gotta answer to secular law, and it's a felony to transport gasoline in improper containers.

Okay, so.  For the seven readers... well actually for the seventeen readers now that I've got some Crooks & Liars audience members... still keeping an eye on this site, any suggestions for Post #500?

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Death By A Thousand Cuts, Well Not a Death But a Serious Wound To Public Service

Normally I've got another blog to talk about librarianship.  But this topic is more about politics than libraries, and besides this is the blog where I use curse words more often and after hearing this I'm in dire need of dropping some F-bombs:

Miami-Dade County commission just voted to NOT raise the county millage rates in order to keep their county libraries and firefighter stations properly funded.  They'll be closing out 22 out of 49 branches as well as a small number of fire stations, and cutting 251 employees from the library system while cutting back on everyone else's hours.

The cuts are the result of a $15 million library budget shortfall. (The system had been using leftover funds to bridge the gap for the past two years.) Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez recommended the budget which necessitates the cuts, as well as which cuts should be made, to the county commissioners, who approved his recommendation on July 16.Once the commissioners set the preliminary rate, it can be lowered but not raised. Throughout August, there will be six town hall meetings to explain the proposed budget to residents and receive feedback. On September 10 and September 16, there will be budget hearings. The commissioners will vote on the budget at the September 16 meeting, and it will take effect on October 1.But though the millage can’t be raised, Raymond Santiago, director of the Miami-Dade Public Library System and LJ’s 2003 Librarian of the Year, hasn’t given up on mitigating the worst of the impacts. He called the cuts presented to the commissioners and detailed above “a worst-case scenario,” and “probably the most drastic of all the options.”“Before the final budget vote in September,” Santiago continued, “the administration will continue to investigate options to reduce these negative impacts” through different adjustments to the library budget. “We’re looking at everything right now,” he said.

This county commission are pretty much the jokers who voted HOW MUCH in order to build a bullshit overpriced gaudy and unfilled baseball stadium for a morally bankrupt killer of baseball franchises - I dare you to say Loria's name in public anywhere in Canada, I dares ya - who as a businessman could have figured out a hundred other ways to raise his own goddamn money to build his own goddamn park.

The city/county mayor Gimenez is quoted in the article as saying "people have said that the age of the library is probably ending." I call bullshit on that, mayor (the Library Journal article I've linked to shows stats that library use has gone UP).  Which people?  'Cause there's a lot of people where I am - and where I've been at other public libraries as well - that come in to use libraries all the time.  People are still checking out books.  They're coming in to use library computers because libraries are now telecommunication hubs and workplaces.  I've got people coming in all the time needing help with logging into their unemployment benefits and online job hunts and typing up their resumes and downloading their medical records to get their HMOs to approve coverage.  Anybody who thinks libraries are ending hasn't been paying attention.

And speaking of all those people who come in to use libraries.  WHERE THE HELL DO THEY GO NOW?  There may be half of the county libraries still open, but they'll now be packed solid with people desperate to get onto computers - not everyone's got a laptop at home, Mister Mayor - and unable to find worktables to get any projects done.  I did the math of 49 branches to 2.5 million county residents, I got it roughly 52,000 people per branch.  With 22 branches closing, that 1.4 million residents suddenly put out without library access.  It will take them that much more effort to get to a library that's further away - not everyone's got a car, Mister Mayor, and buses get expensive too - and they'll be competing with that many more people to get onto a computer.

I worked in Broward County Libraries between 1994 to 2003.  We're right next door, county-wise, and we had a lot of traffic and usage of our resources, a lot of checkouts and a lot of people waiting their turn to use computers.  I can imagine Dade's libraries were just as busy.  I was there when we had a county referendum to vote for a bond issue in 1998, which involved a small tax increase.  We were expecting a close vote.  We got 72 percent approval, an unbelievable result, and it was because people in Broward liked their community libraries and wanted us to improve our services to them.

What the county commission did this week was unforgivable, unwarranted.  If they were having problems raising funds for libraries and fire stations, they should have done what Broward County did back in 1998: let the people vote on it.  Instead, they're cutting services rather than dare the ire of... lord, there's no sign of anyone even yelling at them to cut spending or even yelling about the taxes going up too high.  Why the hell did they do this?!

Here's a solution: sue Loria and Major League Baseball for that $500 million back for an unfilled baseball stadium.  Maybe when he's on the hook for it, Loria might actually spend his own money and field a fucking team in order to fill his goddamned empty seats.  That $500 million could easily pay for the county libraries, the county fire stations, the county police, and about twenty other social services a large metro like Miami have need for.  It's a far better solution than closing half of everything and forcing a ton of low-income families and retirees to suffer.

GOD.  Our political priorities are screwed, aren't they?  Our cities and counties and states and federal government are giving out millions to a handful of men who already have millions while the rest of us have to fight for table scraps.  At what point do we stop this bullshit?

In the meantime, call the Miami Dade County Commission's office (phone 305-375-4696).  Let them know that cutting back on library and firefighter services is a bad f-cking idea (don't say "fuck", but be very stern and concerned sounding) and if you're a county resident remind them that you can very easily vote them out like the idiots they are if they don't straighten up and do right by the citizenry.

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