Allow me to offer a library post-mortem: Nyah, nyah, nyah. (This is so wrong of me. I’ve always loved libraries and our Blair Library is spectacular. But, to continue:) My wife and I — though little special elections like this require lots of effort to remember when speeding past our poll — managed to stop and vote for this separate tax as a stable funding for the Fayetteville Public Library and its new building. But enough aginners turned out to kill it.
These defeatists managed to remember to stop by their polls with no advertising. The library — rather its supporters — did a smidge of paid spots. It adequately covered the free publicity shtick of news conferences, landing good quotes in neutral reportage, strong editorials and letters in favor.
The no-tax folks did essentially none of that, though they can be masters of prop. You think the aginners knew they didn’t need to bother?
The library chiefs said the day after it’s too early to assess why they lost. Here is a more complete second-day follow-up story. I can analyze and be spot-on, if not correct. I did similarly nearly a year ago, on the school district. That one has parallels.
It’s not quite an arrogance on the part of the school district then the library. But it’s not the least accurate term, either. They did act as if their need was obvious and sold itself. Among the well-informed citizenry, yes the need for far-better schools is clear. Springdale of all places continues to be better-funded than a college-town’s school district?
The library is curiouser. We sincerely must thank its director for bringing the facility out of doldrums just a few years ago. Until Louise, this college-town library was sparse in acquisitions and employed few credentialed librarians. It wasn’t bad, though, when compared to those of the neighboring cities. But drop south 55 miles to Fort Smith, which for decades has had branch libraries and whose main library has expanded so fast it needed new buildings twice in just over two decades (early 1970s then the late 1990s). My hometown Fort Smith has more intellectuals?
I have a problem with advertising. I would, being at core a journalist. But how the Fayetteville Public Library needed a new tax mandated explaining, perhaps in ads. The explanation is complicated — the city wished it to be a separately funded function of the city, which also would give the library autonomy and stability. That is not straightforward. Thus, more than rationale this vote needed simplicity.
None was forthcoming. It’s why Americans are slow to catch on to the Iraq war: It’s not as simple as a president taking advantage of an intern: Clinton did what? How can you say, Bush did what?
Inertia rules. Add a tax? Buster, tell me why, before the stoplight turns green, and it has to be a single noun-verb-object sentence. -30-
