DISD Board Trustee Dan Micciche speaks on Why Open Libraries Matter.

"...I’ve been pretty cranky about this issue for a long time. Libraries are places where people go to improve themselves. They’re safe places for kids to learn and dream. They’re places where people who are self-motivated can use the internet to look for jobs, earn degrees, learn English. You can live a long time in Dallas and not know we’re a high-poverty city. Are we going to recognize that we are a high-poverty city, that we are a high-poverty school district? Are we going to support education, or are we going to be at the bottom of the list? We have to fund those libraries. To open the libraries back up again, you would have to take the city’s general fund budget, $1.1 billion, and find 1 percent savings to fund the $10 or $11 million necessary to get us back to the funding we had in the early 2000s. We either need to find the savings or be willing to ask the average homeowner to fork over $25 more a year for libraries. Think about it this way: When your internet is out, how do you feel? You may not need the library as much as you once did, but it means that the people at the bottom of the economic scale need it even more...."

This excerpt was taken from an article that appeared in the Advocate Magazine on August 25. Read the whole article at this link: http://lakewood.advocatemag.com/2014/08/25/qa-dan-micciche/#sthash.eBHVvtz4.RVSU1BBe.dpuf

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