Survey Says: Piedmont Should Pay Its Fair Share for Libraries

 The Piedmont Public Patch Prognosticators have Pronounced their Preferences.

They’d like to see the city of Piedmont pay its fair share to Oakland so Piedmont residents can use the libraries there.

Now if you haven’t browsed your Piedmont Patch in a week,

1. Shame on you.
2. You might be unaware that there’s been about the interrupted payment from Piedmont to Oakland to use the libraries. Piedmont has no municipal library.

The payment had been $350,000 annually in a 10-year contract that ran out in 2008. Negotiations were slow getting started and fast getting bogged down. Oakland thought it had an agreement for $395,000, but no formal agreement was concluded. Right now, Piedmont is paying nothing to Oakland for library privileges.

With that backdrop, Piedmont Patch produced a Web survey with the help of PollDaddy.com. 

When asked “Should the city of Piedmont pay the city of Oakland for Piedmont residents using Oakland libraries?” 26 people said yes, one said no, one was not sure and somebody skipped question no. 1 entirely. (We know who you are and you’re going to have to make a decision!)

Question no. 1 allowed the respondent to leave a comment. Many comments were along the lines of this one: “It’s fair use and common sense to pay for such a crucial service.”

Many were along the lines of “yes, but …” — for instance, this: “Piedmont needs to pay its fair share which should NOT be equal to that paid by Oakland citizens because we have no equity in the system and no input into Oakland library decisions.”

One suggested opening a library in the Christian Scientist building.

I’ve just skimmed the surface of these comments — take a look.

Question no. 2 asked how much Piedmont should pay. Fourteen people said $350,000, eight said $400,000, four said less than those options and one said more.

Again, a sampling of comments:

• “They will suffer if we pull out entirely. Play hard ball. Everyone is being cut. We can stay the same or less since we all have cuts in our budgets too.”
• “The rate should be set based on a negotiation between the 2 cities. What Oakland residents pay, what Emeryville as a city pays and what Piedmont has paid historically are starting points for that negotiation, but I can't say where it should end up. (I chose $400 as the "middle" option since there wasn’t' a "don't know" button.)”

Again, we skim the surface. Look at question no. 2 and scroll down to the comments.