Is racial politics behind a proposal to close some Mecklenburg County libraries and leave others open? Commissioner Bill James apparently thinks so.

On the library system’s Facebook page, James recently wrote that a task force recommendation to close six library branches appears to be race-based. None of the branches proposed for closure is in an area with a high African American population.

James noted in his Facebook post that some of the branches proposed for closure -- including Plaza Midwood and Hickory Grove – have significantly higher usage than those in low-income communities that could be protected.

The Matthews branch, for example, with nearly 665,000 transactions in fiscal year 2010, is on the list for potential closure, but the West Boulevard branch, with about 118,000 transactions over that period, did not on that list.

“The ones with the highest usage should be getting the most protection - not the other way around,” James wrote. “If people in an area don't even bother to show up at high levels why protect the facility over a place where people really USE the library. (sic)”

James suggested that recent NAACP protests may have swayed the task force’s recommendations.

In a Charlotte Observer article Sunday, Jim Woodward, who led the citizen-based task force, denied that the group "caved" to the NAACP.

Still, Woodward predicts the decision to close some branches and spare others will be politically sensitive and concedes some will see it as a "black-white issue."

"The question is: What do you do to make sure all children have a reasonable access to library service, whether they are black or white? ... If you are poor, you are less likely to have a computer, less likely to have a vehicle and less likely to have books.

"They depend on the library for all that."

County leaders recommended the task force as a way to get citizen input as the county looks for ways to make the library system more sustainable. Commissioners last year cut $10 million from the library system, resulting in closings, hundreds of layoffs and a 50 percent reduction in hours.

A final decision on branch closings will rest with county commissioners and library system officials.

The email postings by James were not the first time he has waded into racially and politically sensitive waters. Last year, citing a federal study on genital herpes, he sent out an email calling African Americans “immoral.” He also has labeled homosexuals as “sexual predators” and once said urban blacks live in a “moral sewer.”
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The Charlotte Observer contributed to this report.

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