The library and equity

Richard Burg wrote in a recent commentary that he was disappointed in the actions of the Healdsburg City Council when they insisted on equity in the new governing document for the Sonoma County Library of which the Healdsburg Regional Library is a founding member.  I welcome Richard’s admittedly belated attention to a process that has been going on for years.  Let’s try to answer his question, “What is Equity?”
The Sonoma County Library is an unusual government entity called a Joint Powers Agreement or JPA.  Most counties provide library service through both city libraries and county libraries.  Libraries get most of their income from property taxes.  Cities have more per-capita property tax base and better funded libraries while the county usually has to provide library service with less funds.
Now, in Sonoma County between the 50s and 70s all city libraries joined the Sonoma County Library system and formed a Joint Powers Agency, with the founding principles of increased service and equity of service. Cities got more library service than they could otherwise afford, and they were freed from having to run a library. Every Library in the county strives to offer high quality service, and has to be open the same number of hours.
The Joint Powers Agency concept worked beautifully for 40 years. Then in 2008 the economy tanked. The library ran out of money, having to choose whether to cut staff, close branches or cut hours to live within their reduced means. The director and the commission decided to cut hours. That decision has had consequences:  the director is gone; and there is a county review committee to change the way the library system is governed. The JPA Review Committee, made from city staff and councilmen from throughout the county, has been meeting for 17 months.  
What does this have to do with equity?
Perhaps the following example (drawn from the comments of Supervisor Shirley Zane during the JPA Review process) demonstrates the concept of equity of services.  Imagine a city library jurisdiction in the Deep South. There is a prosperous part of town with a good tax base. There is an un-prosperous part of town with a not-so-good tax base. Each side has an equal number of people. The people in the prosperous part tend to be white and professional. The other part of town is largely African-American and Latino. The city has enough money to build and staff two libraries. The rich white side of town argues that they pay the taxes and should have a bigger, better library with more hours. The poor mixed race side of town argues that they need a library more than the other part of town who can better afford their own books and who have computers in their homes. The library in the poor part of town should have more books, hours and support to help the people there.
Meanwhile, back in Sonoma County, as the JPA Review progressed, Sebastopol residents, outraged as we all were at having Monday closures, have petitioned to restore their library’s hours and used the JPA Review process to promote that aim.  In the process, they have trampled the equity of service principle.  
How do you provide equity? It starts with equal hours. I think closing Mondays was a huge mistake, and having each and every library having the same exact days and hours open was another mistake. But to fix it you do not betray your founding principles. Our founding principles were economy of scale, shared resources and equity of service. Let’s keep the playing field level.
Bo Simons is the Branch Manager of the Healdsburg Regional Library.