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Your message to City Leadership
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Dear Chief Librarian Cooper and Mr. Hill, President of the Board of Library Trustees: Currently, the DCPL website regarding the new Shaw library has old "bunker" images that were shown to the public in July >> http://dclibrary.org/dcpl/cwp/view.asp?a=1273&q=568410 Additionally, we have noticed that not ALL images shown to folks at so-called final design meetings in Anacostia and Benning are not online, only a couple are up on the site. We want ALL images (front, back, and sides) shown to the public at the design meetings to be put on your website. In fact, they should have been put online at least a week or more before the design meetings so that people could come to the meetings prepared with questions. Is this a tactic to diffuse and dismiss constructive critique of your work? Shouldn't this process be a collaborative one, whereby DCPL helps the community in shaping the library? If you don't put all images online with as much architectural narrative to give the images some context, you are doing a disservice to the process and to our communities. Chief Cooper, we know that you have heard about these concerns many many times. Why aren't you listening? Please fulfill your promises to use the DCPL website to fully inform the public during these library transformations. District residents deserve better. District residents deserve respect. We are not getting this from the community input process you have set up and oversee. The end result is expensive libraries that are only marginally better than the buildings that have been torn down. Regards, ~ Concerned resident who wants to see our new library designs as shown to the public at design meetings --- PS: Images are only a component of the problem with your design process. The inadequate yet expensive libraries will be the end result of a pitiful and regrettable design process where: * DC Public Library (DCPL) willfully ignored District professionals requests and comments over the past year, * DCPL leadership still won't give us a line-item budget for our the new libraries, * DCPL took many months to update their website with the latest design images hampering the information loop, * DCPL did not actively seek out the youth and seniors living around libraries about to get their feedback. The result are libraries which DCPL is calling 21st Century but: * will NOT have dedicated space to help adults who can't read (1 in 3 people in DC are functionally illiterate), * will NOT have dedicated space for a computer training lab and continuing education for adults, * will sadly have meeting rooms in the lower levels of the buildings despite many residents opposed to such, * will NOT be constructed so that the buildings can be expanded in the future as the need arises, * will NOT have active green technologies like solar and wind to offset rising energy prices, * is costing DC taxpayers 15+ million dollars, which is two to three times the rate of branch libraries around the nation.