After a summer of community meetings and a futile effort to convince the city to increase its budget, the Library Board is likely to vote to close three community libraries as a way to mend its ailing budget and improve services throughout the system.

The plan, revealed last week by a Library Board committee, would close Southeast, Webber Park, and Roosevelt libraries, while expanding hours at the other 12 community libraries and preserving full-time jobs, reports Kari VanDerVeen in the Southwest Journal.

“There’s not one of us who wants to close libraries,” Library Board president Anita Duckor told those attending an October 10 meeting where the decision was announced. But the library budget is dependent upon decreasing levels of Local Government Aid from the state and is anticipating the reopening of East Lake and North Regional community libraries without the operating budget to staff them. The Library Board would need a significant infusion of cash (about $6.5 million) to its $22 million cash infusion to keep all 15 libraries open in 2007.

The City Council has been unresponsive to Library Board overtures, though Council Member Gary Schiff has suggested that some $250,000 might be available in Mayor R.T. Rybak’s budget. Rybak, however, has said he would support the Library Board’s decision to close libraries.