Of course this is how it turns out:
The Seattle Library proposal for 2010 would cut service hours by 23 percent, and 21 of the branches would limit access to 35 hours a week.
There are too many methods to suggest on how Seattle might fix this situation. None of them will likely dawn on the civic leaders of that fair city. Why? Because they are government employees. They are unable to access value in the face of duty.
See, if you suggest that perhaps Seattle should charge a bit more [if they even charge now] for their services, those fair-minded bastions of civic service would blanch!
Charge more for books!?! We simply couldn’t do that, it wouldn’t be fair to the people of our fair city! They are dependent upon us to provide them with a safe place to read books. Charge. Hah!
So instead, they’ll just reduce the availability of those free services; by 23%. I guess with holding free services isn’t considered unfair. And such is the mind of the leftist. It is better to have less of a free service than more of a fee based service, even though by being fee based, you get a better system. How much would it take, do you ask, to restore services to the city’s libraries? Let’s check:
It could operate three more branches seven days a week, for about $430,000; it could add six more for $860,000, or it could add three seven-day branches and restore a sixth day at all branches for about $1 million.
And how many people visit the library each year?
According to the ALA, Seattle, with its central library and 26 branches, is one of the top cities of its size in the nation for library visits, more than 6 million a year. Nearly one in 11 Seattle residents use the library
So, we need to scare out $1 million from 6 million visits; that’s about 0.16 per visit. But that would mean charging people for a service. A service that they are now getting less of.
Oh, I we haven’t even discussed just simply reducing costs yet….
And they want to trust these guys to run health care.