Mariners Branch Library concerns go online

Deirdre Newman

NEWPORT BEACH -- A group of parents has taken concerns about the

proposed joint-use Mariners Branch Library onlineto educate people about

the risks to children they say are inherent in shared school-public

libraries.

Leading the charge is Linda Duffy, who has a kindergartner at Mariners

Elementary School now and two younger children who will eventually go to

the school.

The proposed 14,000-square-foot library would replace the current

Mariners Branch Library and would be located on city property adjacent to

the school. Students would no longer use their own school library but

would go, with their teachers, to the children’s section of the public

library instead.

The Web site, o7 www.marinersjointuselibrary.orgf7 , was launched

Thursday and includes documentation indicating that pedophiles -- both

adults and teenagers -- have easy access to child pornography on library

computers.

“You have to look at the research on what pedophiles are doing,” Duffy

said. “They’re very smart. They make themselves familiar with children.”

City officials say they are listening to the concerns as plans for the

library are put together.

The joint-use library plan is designed to take advantage of a funding

opportunity for joint projects. To qualify for $2 million from the state,

library supporters must raise $1 million through charitable donations. So

far, proponents have raised a little more than $300,000 and have until

early next month to raise the rest.

Duffy and her supporters say a joint-use library is chock full of

risks. On the Web site are statistics such as “Public libraries had 82

million Internet sessions [with an] annual porn incident rate of between

400,000 and 2 million,” as well as documentation of incidents such as one

in a Phoenix library in 1998 that involved a 13-year-old boy viewing porn

on the Internet and then accosting a 4-year-old boy.

It also includes articles about lawsuits filed last year by both the

American Civil Liberties Union and the American Library Assn. to get

filters removed from computers in children’s sections.

At Newport Beach libraries, filters block minors from accessing

pornographic images on the Internet. There are no filters on the

computers in adult sections.

“The more research I found, the more disturbed I got,” Duffy said. “I

was not sleeping at night.”

Duffy and her group are among many in the community who have raised

safety concerns about the proposed library.

The recent arrest of a city employee who allegedly engaged in lewd

acts with children has also sparked fears.

Police say Trenton Veches sucked the toes of more than 40 children,

videotaping many of the incidents, at three Newport Beach community

centers.

With all these concerns, there are a host of safety features that will

be incorporated into the new library, including video cameras, a separate

entrance for students to the children’s section, separate bathrooms in

the children’s section and a security patrol, said Judy Kelley, youth and

branch services manager for the library.

“We feel that we’re listening to all the input from the public,”

Kelley said. “We feel we really have addressed all the security issues.”

But the plethora of security measures are not enough to placate some

parents.

“The supervision they will have will not be enough for interaction

with the general public,” said parent Laura Forbes, one of Duffy’s

supporters. “I don’t want to get a call from school some day that my

child disappeared when he was at the library.”