Want
a decent public library? You’d better hope your library sits in a State
Assembly district represented by a Republican.

GOP
assemblymembers say they expect to receive an average of $30,000 each for
libraries in their own districts. The money is reportedly coming from Gov.
George Pataki’s own discretionary funds (read: pork barrel) after Assembly
Republicans refused to vote for veto overrides that would have restored library aid cut by the Governor. Albion
Assemblyman and Republican Minority leader Charles Nesbitt and other Republican
members of the assembly insist the two issues are unrelated.

“It
sort of defies belief that libraries would be funded this way,” says Kathy
Miller, Executive Director of the Rochester Regional Library Council. “I mean a
library has no control over where it is.”

Bill
Pontius, director of the Friends of the Rochester Public Library, took it a
step further. “It’s intellectually dishonest of the governor to say there’s a
state shortfall that requires him to cut library money and then turn around and
hand out money to libraries in Republican districts,” he says.

There’s
more. Despite rising costs, state funding for libraries has remained static
since 1997, Pontius and Miller say, and this year’s budget actually contains a
5-percent cut. Both also say the hidden victim of these cuts is system
services.

The
Monroe County Library System is losing $108,186 from a $2.1 million budget that
both Republican and Democratic state legislators had assured them was coming,
says MCLS Finance Director Kevin Loughran. Their Bookmobile is no longer on the
road, and they’ve seen significant staff reductions, he says. They’ll have a
difficult time funding things like the transportation costs associated with
interlibrary loans, and the costs of computer systems that let users search for
books in area libraries. Loughran’s also worried about the institutional memory
of the libraries he serves, where less funding has meant fewer opportunities
for retiring veteran librarians to mentor fresh faces in the library world.

“The
library system is collapsing all over the state,” Loughran says. Like others
around the state, he sees the money as a drop in the ocean of the state’s vast
budget. New York Library Association Executive Director Michael Borges said the
cuts total $4.4 million in a state budget of over $100 billion.

“It’s
a small amount of money to most people, but it makes a big difference to the
libraries,” Miller says.

Democratic
Assembly Majority Speaker Sheldon Silver told a New York City television
station that if the votes were the result of funding promises to GOP
Assemblymembers by Pataki — which he believes is the case — they would
violate state law.

The
Albany Times-Union included this
definition at the end of a recent article on the issue:

“State
Penal Law says a person is guilty of bribery in the second degree — a Class-C
felony — for giving or offering ‘any benefit valued in excess of $10,000 upon
a public servant upon an agreement or understanding that such public servant’s
vote, opinion, judgment, action, decision, or exercise of discretion as a
public servant will thereby be influenced.’ Accepting a bribe under those
circumstances is also a class C felony.”

Returning
to WRUR…

Two
long-standing local radio programs living in a state of virtual limbo during
88.5 WRUR-FM’s transition into a
partnership with WXXI-FM are returning to the air. The immensely popular
soul music show hosted by Scott Wallace and the blues show hosted by Doug Curry
are back with new names and new timeslots. Now, listeners can tune in to 88.5
every Saturday to hear The Soul Show from 6 to 8 p.m. followed by The Blues
with Doug Curry from 8 to 10 p.m.

According
to several WRUR DJs, it appears the station has relegated all community DJs to
the weekend hours. And the station has also stopped its summer-long practice of
pre-recording radio programs so they can be screened before airing. For
background, visit www.rochester-citynews.com and do a search for “WRUR.” And
keep reading City for future reports
on the changes at the station.

The
rush to register

Time’s
almost up. Monroe County Democratic Board of Elections Commissioner Thomas
Ferrarese says 1,000 new voter
registrations are coming into his office every day. The deadline to
register is Friday, October 8, and as usual there’s a flood of last-minute
voters still registering. Procrastinating isn’t unusual, but there’s usually
“nothing to this level,” Ferrarese says. “It gets really, really crazy.”

Ferrarese
chalks it up to a hotly-contested presidential election this year, something he
says always draws out high numbers of new registrants. If you’re one of those
who meant to register this year and just haven’t quite gotten around to it,
time’s almost up — but not quite.

You
can register in person at the board of elections office until Friday at 5 p.m.
(it’s on the first floor of the county’s downtown office building, 39 W. Main
St.), or drop your registration in the mail by that same deadline. Still need
to procrastinate? You’re in luck. This year the county board of elections is
running a last-chance voter drive Saturday, October 9 from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m. at
its downtown offices, as well as all city libraries and all town halls. You can
call 428-4550 for more information.

This article appears in Oct 6-12, 2004.