Community Commentary -- Kirt Gentry

If the proposed Mariners Branch Public Library is constructed, it will

serve as a “joint-use” library for both Mariners Elementary School and

the general public (“Parents skeptical about after-school programs,”

April 21). This will necessitate the closure of the Mariners Elementary

School campus library, a library with more than 14,000 books and an

Internet-filtered computer lab that adequately and safely serves the

needs of our schoolchildren.

The planned facility will be constructed directly adjacent to Mariners

Elementary School -- a school without a secure, fenced perimeter -- and

will draw many more visitors from a wider geographic area than the

existing public library currently serves.

And while Mariners Elementary School will have its own entrance

leading into the children’s section of the proposed joint-use public

library, the general public cannot legally be barred from the children’s

section at any time. This means that the general public, including

convicted felons and sex offenders, will be free to enter the main

entrance of the library and proceed directly into the children’s section

to sit among Mariners students.

I include convicted felons and sex offenders because it is a

documented fact that pornography -- including child pornography -- is

being downloaded from inside public libraries across the nation. The

Newport Beach Public Library system does not filter Internet access in

the adult sections of their branches as they do in their children’s

sections. These two areas in the proposed new library will be physically

separated by no more than an open doorway.

Keep in mind that no longer will our children’s visit to the public

library be an authorized field trip with both teacher and parent

chaperons. This public “joint-use” library will become the daily campus

library of more than 600 schoolchildren for decades to come.

Before supporting the construction of the proposed library, please ask

yourself two questions: “Does there actually exist a ‘joint need’ large

enough to demand the construction of a ‘joint-use’ facility?” “Is the

city rushing into unknown territory in an effort to claim Proposition 14

dollars?”

But most importantly, ask “Does the community benefit of a new library

outweigh the increased risk to the safety of Mariners’ schoolchildren?”

To a growing number of Mariners Elementary parents, the proposed

Mariners Branch Public Library is looking less and less like a library,

and more and more like a liability.

* KIRT GENTRY is a Newport Beach resident.