County Council to Decide Fate of Library Jobs, HRC Monday night

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Members of Keep Our Library Public are expected to turn out in force for council's special meeting Monday at 6 p.m. Council will consider whether to override line-item vetoes by Erie County Executive Brenton Davis. His vetoes would eliminate nine library jobs and make other substantial cuts to the 2024 budget, which has already been adopted. Keep Our Library Public picketed before County Council's Dec. 12 meeting.

A special Erie County Council meeting at 6 p.m. Monday is likely to draw large crowds as council decides whether to override Erie County Executive Brenton Davis's line-item vetoes in the 2024 budget.

The focus of Keep Our Library Public, the grassroots group protesting council's decision to lease space at Blasco Library to Gannon University, has expanded to include Davis's proposal to eliminate nine library jobs and slash funding for paid interns at the library. 

On its Facebook page and during informational picketing, Keep Our Library Public members have urged Erie residents to email and call all seven County Council members to ask them to override the vetoes. Keep Our Library Public is also urging people to attend Monday's special meeting in room 117 at the Erie County Courthouse. Council members will caucus at 5 p.m. in room 114A.

Eight people, including Mary Rennie, former councilwoman for the 3rd District and former Erie County Library director, signed up in advance and will get five minutes to speak. Other members of the public will have three minutes to address the council.

The Davis plan to fire employees from the library – eight at Blasco and a part-time clerk at the Millcreek Branch Library – won't be the only contentious issue.

Davis also wants to cut $285,000 from the Erie County Human Relations Commission (HRC), effectively eliminating it nine months after council hired Kelly Ryan as the HRC executive director. Originally established and funded by the city of Erie in 1963, the HRC has periodically faced funding challenges but has always managed to survive.

In 1997, when the HRC faced a funding crisis, Rev. Vincent Enright, a Catholic priest who chaired the commission, stressed the importance of the commission's work. "The sense that we don't need an HRC the way we needed it in 1963 is wrong. We really need it now more than ever," he told the Erie Times-News.

In addition to the library and the HRC, Davis's vetoes cut county funding in half for Pleasant Ridge Manor, the nursing home in Fairview for indigent patients, and changes the funding source for court-appointed attorneys for poor clients, among a host of other changes.

Rennie said that of the county's $580 million budget, $134 million comes from local taxpayers. 

"As enormous as this budget is, the public end of things has always been fairly transparent, at least until now. Last month Council passed a budget that included broad cuts and a double-digit tax increase," she said. "Although it was largely on his recommendation, the county executive proceeded to nix that budget last week."

"Davis instead issued a series of left-field vetoes that, oddly, could end up increasing the cost to taxpayers," she said. "If you're feeling like you were just side-swiped at a busy intersection and left looking, you're not alone. What happened to the public process? Many are also asking the same."

The Erie County Executive prepares the annual county budget and County Council can then make changes documented by "action sheets."

County Council Chairman Brian Shank, R-5th District, told Erie Times-News reporter A.J. Rao that he opposes Davis's actions. Shank questioned why Davis waited to change the budget until after the council had voted 4-3 to pass it on Nov. 28.

 "Why would you wait for us to go 680-pages deep, line by agonizing line, asking 'What do we have to cut?' This was not the best way to handle it," Shank said.

County Council and the Davis administration are embroiled in legal battle involving the 2023 budget over additional expenses that Davis added after the budget had already been adopted.

To read County Council's action sheets, the Davis vetoes and the complete agenda for Monday's meeting, go to https://eriecopa.portal.civicclerk.com/.

Check eriereader.com for updates to this story.

LIZ ALLEN is a contributing writer to the Erie Reader.