Why is City Hall shortchanging southern Dallas to save a library north?

The Dallas City Council has trouble sticking to its convictions. The conversation surrounding the proposed closure of the Skillman Southwestern Library proves that.

Facing a budget shortfall and massive pension obligations, interim City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert and her staff set out to find cost savings to shore up the upcoming budget. That plan involves closing the Skillman library in northeast Dallas, largely due to its close proximity to other branches and low foot traffic.

But a wave of community opposition led council members last week to tentatively shuffle some money intended for underserved neighborhoods in southern Dallas to preserve the library branch in a well-resourced area of northeast Dallas. While the full council has yet to weigh in with a formal vote, the move highlights a recurring problem at City Hall.

Whether it’s the botched charter review process this year or the unchecked scope creep in the 2024 bond program, this council caves to outside pressure when it faces politically difficult decisions.

If our local representatives capitulate every time an interest group champions a pet cause or challenges an unpopular but well-reasoned policy proposal, then Dallas will just keep kicking cans down the road. Facing unpleasant but necessary decisions is part of the job description when you sit around the council horseshoe.

No one wants to see libraries close. They’re hubs for learning, community and creativity. But the 13,200-square-foot Skillman branch sits roughly a mile away from the state-of-the-art Vickery Park branch that opened in 2021. The bright and colorful 18,000-square-foot Vickery Park branch has multiple meeting rooms, a children’s play area and a tree-lined plaza. Closing the Skillman branch would surely be an inconvenience for some, but residents still have a great library option nearby.

The Dallas Public Library system doesn’t have enough money in its budget to keep the Skillman branch open while ensuring all the city’s other libraries remain open at least six days a week, this newspaper reported.

Instead, the council is considering using about $485,000 meant for the city’s infrastructure investment fund. That bucket of money was approved last year with the purpose of encouraging investment in the city’s high-poverty areas, mainly south of Interstate 30, by reimbursing developers for the cost of building infrastructure or related work.

To this day, Dallas is defined by its north-south divide. Taking funds meant to reverse decades of neglect in southern Dallas to keep a library open in a better-off part of town makes no sense. Council members haven’t even voiced a plan for how to fund the Skillman library beyond the next fiscal year.

None of this is to say that council members shouldn’t listen to their constituents. But emotional and personal attachments can’t be the reason to ignore good financial sense. The council should be fair to southern Dallas rather than crack under pressure.

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