What is going on at our wonderful downtown library? At least five Library Assistants 1 have recently been fired. These are people with decades of experience and valued relationships with patrons. These employees loved and needed their jobs.

You might think it was a budgetary decision, but it wasn’t. The employees who were fired were part-time employees with few benefits. Their combined salaries don’t equal that of a new position just posted for Assistant Library Director (a new position never needed before) at a minimum salary of $110,000 with benefits.

Our Central Library is a Carnegie library that should not only bring a joy of reading and learning to our community but also a respect for its faithful employees. Are we losing that?

Please, City Council, Library Foundation, and citizens, do something about this.

Editor’s Note: City of Santa Barbara Human Resources confirmed that six hourly assignments ended at the main library; together, they were paid less than $110,000 annually for a workweek that ranged from 4.5 hours to 16.5 hours. The new Assistant Library Director position was created when two Library Services Manager positions were eliminated — one of them became the current Library Director — and there are now two management-level positions instead of three.

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