Mayor Gloria under fire for diverting funds from police to so-called “libraries”

San Diegans from all walks of life are calling for both explanation and change from Mayor Todd Gloria following the release of his proposed city budget. At issue is his proposal that the city’s police department receive a mere $19 million increase — barely enough to cover its rising pension obligations — while diverting millions to “libraries,” a kind of pre-internet information resource with warehouse locations around the city. “This is outrageous,” says Black community activist Wendell Jones. “At a time when poll after poll and survey after survey show that Black Americans in marginalized neighborhoods want more police presence, not less, the mayor thinks its okay to simply maintain the status quo in a town currently suffering a serious police shortage. And then he has the gall to prop up some failing, irrelevant institution just to placate his liberal elite supporters who think education is the solution, when study after study shows it simply isn’t. And even if it were, who goes to the library any more? Schools hand out iPads like they’re candy; we have all the information we could possibly need right at home. Now we just need to be safe, right at home. And for that, you need police.” Mayor Gloria has tried to placate critics by noting that he cut nearly $7 million from the previous library budget, but Jones remains unimpressed: “Talk to me when those temples to the outdated technology that is the book are converted to affordable housing.”