Cedar Rapids Public Library, Still Wrangling with FEMA Over Interim Aid, Begins Layoffs
Norman Oder -- Library Journal, 4/22/2009
- Libraries crucial after disasters
- FEMA relies on law passed in 1988, pre-Internet
- ALA says FEMA has been unresponsive
While the Cedar Rapids Public Library (CRPL), IA, has been successful in getting Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funding to replace its flood-damaged main library, the library, like those in the Gulf Coast that endured recent disasters, has found FEMA obdurate in its resistance to funding interim library service, and thus has begun layoffs. An appeal, backed by major Iowa legislators, is pending.
FEMA’s rationale? The Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, first passed in 1988 well before libraries become hubs for Internet and other community services, does not define libraries among “essential community services [which] include medical, custodial care, education, emergency, utilities and other health and safety services of a governmental nature.”
“Every public library in the country is put at risk by this,” Tamara Glise, CRPL’s interim director, told LJ.
Emily Sheketoff, executive director of the American Library Association’s (ALA) Washington Office, told LJ that ALA hasn’t gained much headway. “I had my last unsuccessful conversation with FEMA on Friday, April 17,” she said. “We are again looking for an alternative, [as] we have little hope of relief from FEMA.”
Roadblocks in Louisiana
After hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the Gulf Coast in 2005, public libraries trying to provide interim service ran into the same roadblocks. “FEMA undoubtedly determined that libraries were critical and essential,” Louisiana State Librarian Rebecca Hamilton told LJ with an edge of irony. “They did everything they could to work out of public libraries [themselves].”
Hamilton said that FEMA officials, who in some cases were quite helpful regarding replacement of lost buildings and their contents, stuck to a limited vision regarding interim essential service. FEMA officials asked whether libraries would hand out food and water or serve as places to offer medical aid like CPR.
But they didn’t realize, Hamilton said, that people needed Internet service to find their loved ones and to file disaster relief claims with government agencies and insurance companies.
Charlotte Trosclair, former director of the Cameron Parish Library, LA, said that she just “knocked heads” with some of the FEMA representatives with whom she dealt after Rita. “How can you tell me a library was not essential,” she told LJ. “In today’s world, people can’t function without the libraries.”
While the building in Cameron Parish was lost, the library provided service through a bookmobile, said Trosclair, who now directs the Vermilion Parish Library. Only thanks to donations from around the country and later the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation aid did the library survive.
Cedar Rapids cuts
CRPL will lay off seven staff members, out of 51.5 FTE, as of April 30, saving about $190,000 in the upcoming fiscal year, which begins in July. Five are shelvers.
“Library funding was extremely tight prior to the flood last June, and it’s still extremely tight now,” said library board president Susan Corrigan in a news release. “That fact has not changed. What has changed is the number of staff hours needed in the smaller footprint of the Bridge Library facility. We deeply regret losing members of our valued staff.” She said the staff would be restored when the new library is built.
Glise added that the FEMA issue also weighs on the planning process: “We are still trying to use our operating budget and donations to rebuild services with no help from the federal government.”
Two of those being laid off, adult services coordinator Rebecca Bartlett and shelver manager Pat Schabo, were featured on the cover of the January 2009 issue of Library Journal, in which the 11-member CRPL management team won the Librarian of the Year award.
Letter to FEMAIowa Senators Tom Harkin and Chuck Grassley and Rep. Dave Loebsack, whose district includes Cedar Rapids, have asked FEMA to reconsider its denial for for temporary relocation assistance to support the main library.
“We disagree with FEMA’s decision that the library is not a critical service and ask that you review all applicable regulations, in particular the April 2007 revision of the Stafford Act. Section 403 provides for the 'provision of temporary facilities for schools and other essential community services,'” they wrote.
“In fact, the library is a critical part of local educational services, serving not only educators and students in Cedar Rapids, but throughout Linn County. It has an extensive reference database that is relied upon by area school districts to supplement their own resources. The Main Library has been available to students in the evenings and on weekends when access to school libraries is not available.”
