E-mail from CCL officer Greg Embree to County Board members after the budget work
session of April 7, 2009.
Dear Ms. Favola:
Thank you for allowing the public to attend the first budget meeting yesterday evening,
during which Director Diane Kresh presented the Libraries Department budget. Ms. Kresh
and County Manager Ron Carlee each emphasized that the three libraries facing a proposed
50-percent cut in their availability to patrons--Aurora Hills, Cherrydale, and Glencarlyn
--accounted
for the fewest patron visits in the entire library system.
I wish to make sure you have some additional statistics that Ms. Kresh and Mr. Carlee
neglected to mention: Each of these same three libraries in the first eight months of
FY 2009 has accounted for a larger percentage of patron visits than what each library costs
as a percentage of the total budget for County libraries. For its part, Cherrydale Library
in FY 2009 will have absorbed 4.05 percent of the County’s library budget while handling
5.57 percent of patron visits. These numbers come from the Libraries Department's pages on
the County's web site: http://www.arlingtonva.us/departments/Libraries/about/BranchComparisonStatistics.aspx .
Cherrydale Library is an efficient and cost-effective operation. Its usage during the past
year, moreover, has risen at a rate at least equal to that of the library system as a whole.
On another issue, I was dismayed to realize last night from Mr. Carlee's remarks that each
time I visit Central Library, I am contributing to a statistical confirmation that I do not
value Cherrydale Library. I wish to assure you that at least one occasional user of Central
Library (myself) values the continuing availability of Cherrydale Library very highly. There
is evidence that I am not alone. Nearly three-fourths of the respondents to a 1987 survey by
the Cherrydale Citizens Association (CCA) indicated that they use Cherrydale Library on a
regular basis. In 1998, over 600 hundred citizens signed a petition against Cherrydale Library’s
closure. Over eighty percent of respondents to a 2003 CCA survey favored keeping Cherrydale
Library open. During the past month, more than 700 citizens have signed a petition against
cutting Cherrydale Library's hours.
Thank you for including these considerations in your deliberations about the future of Cherrydale
Library.
Respectfully,
Greg Embree
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