D.C. Libraries Wander Off The Path to a Happy Ending

The city's effort to control public participation seems typical to Leonard Minsky, who runs Nader's D.C. Library Renaissance Project, which helped spur the creation of the mayor's task force, which in turn, he said, has virtually cut off contact with the Nader group. "They are showing no real interest in a consultative process with the public," Minsky said.

"It's all about crafting the message, not hearing the public," said Richard Huffine, who heads the Federation of Friends of the D.C. Public Library. "What people are saying is that they want longer hours [and] open, inviting spaces and multilingual services, but the task force chooses not to hear what people are saying."

Library board Chairman John Hill, to his credit, has been attending the sessions and answering questions. He assures audiences that they will have plenty of chances to be heard, both by the library board and the D.C. Council.

But in the new consultant-driven process, politicians use public dollars to avoid interaction with the public when it matters most. Small groups, billed as a way to make democracy more intimate, instead prevent dissenting voices from hearing one another. Result: the views that emerge from listening sessions magically agree with the government's agenda.

In Petworth, I roamed among the small groups and heard a sizable number of people object to the task force's emphasis on bestsellers and "hot topics." They wanted the library to invest in research materials and the classics. But those folks never learned of one another's existence because they were divided into separate groups.

Does it make sense to build a new main library downtown in this era of researching in your pajamas? Residents didn't discuss that because the moderator asked them to talk about "what special collections and programs should be established in a new central library."

The saddest part of this defensive distortion of democracy is that the task force should have trusted its own findings. Hill makes a powerful argument for a new central library, and the system desperately needs to capitalize on its real estate holdings by teaming up with developers on projects that will serve the reading public and bolster the city's finances.

But because the city -- whether it's about libraries, baseball, a new hospital or school closings -- doesn't trust its residents and doesn't know how to sell its policies the honest, old-fashioned way, the Williams administration repeatedly chooses to hire consultants to deliver the mere aura of open government.

The result is that even when things move in the right direction, the city sees the wrong kind of story being written.

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