Mayor Bloomberg cautions
sugary drinks can be bad
for your health and cause
diabetes- Take SMALL SIPS
ONLY . . . No large takeaway
bottles!
But do you remember that BEFORE Mayor Bloomberg was AGAINST sugary drinks he was FOR THEM and he was PUSHING THEM on New York City residents and school children. . . and in New York City libraries?
Do I have your attention? Would it intrigue you to know that this Bloomberg's pushing of sugary drinks relates to the way that New York City Libraries are being sold and shrunk, handed off to developers with an inside track as real estate deals?
There is a pretty good story here, but it is surprising how hard it can be to get the media to pick up on some pretty good scoops in this area and disconcerting how selectively the news media is choosing to report certain news. . .
. . The Daily News has a Juan Gonzalez article up today reporting that Queens Library head Thomas Galante is likely to be dismissed from his position Thursday night by a newly reconstituted Queens Library board of trustees. See: Queens Library chief likely to be suspended in upcoming meeting- Close the book on this one. Thomas Galante, the library's $392,000-a-year president and CEO, who has held the post since 2003, will see his fate decided by a new board of trustees on Thursday night, according to board sources, September 10, 2014.
You may think that Juan Gonzalez is an investigative reporter who delves into things, one that’s going to give you the whole story, everything you need to know. But do you know what Gonzalez hasn’t bothered to report yet?- What hasn’t been reported at all by the Daily News or the rest of the press as its focuses full bore on this story? . .
. . . It’s not just that these news stories consistently skip over reporting that Galanate’s salary, the main source of contention in the scandal making abject claim on their focus, is lower than the salaries at the NYPL. .
Do you know that the Queens Library had a long history of standing up to Mayor Bloomberg?
Did you know that The Queens Library system has been expanding its libraries while the BPL and NYPL have been shrinking and selling libraries to hand off as real estate deals?
Did you know that just before Bloomberg left office there was a knock-down, drag-out fight concerning the Queens library board, about what real estate development oriented high-ranking aide the departing Bloomberg would leave as a trustee on the board in violation of the library’s bylaws? . .
. . . That big board fight was immediately prior to the one now playing out. And the last time Albany stepped in to alter a library board via legislation, as was just done here, was to give Bloomberg greater control over the BPL board, clearing the way for those in Bloomberg’s inner circle who were readying to sell and shrink libraries, handing them off as real estate deals.
Did you know that the Queens Library has resisted efforts to merge operations of all three library systems resisting so-called "cost-saving": changes that might actually cost the public extra?
Read about the way the Queens Library stood up to Bloomberg repeatedly in different ways, starting with the "Snapple" fiasco (the sugary drink connection first mentioned) in Noticing New York: Sunday, August 31, 2014, Mostly In Plain Sight (A Few Conscious Removals Notwithstanding) Minutes Of Brooklyn Public Library Tell Shocking Details Of Strategies To Sell Brooklyn's Public Libraries. You'll get a fuller and more complete understanding of what is likely going on at the Queens Library than just reading Juan Gonzalez's retransmission of the superficial story that several anonymous "board sources" are handing out as if it is, provocatively, the inside, insight-providing story it isn't.
That Noticing New York article is chock-full of scoops (highlighted here) about the mismanagement of our libraries, including how library administration officials seem to think that it is just fine and dandy to run libraries as if they were economic development agencies . . . What’s even worse is that they also seem to think that “economic development” means handing off deals to connected developers in crony capitalism fashion.