Not many of the residents who helped get the San Carlos Branch Library built still live in San Carlos, so when the Friends of the Library Historian published a request for help collecting date for the upcoming 4oth Anniversary of the library celebration I sent the following information to her.
"Late in 1969 or early in 1970 I was appointed Library Chairman of the San Carlos Community Council, the predecessor to the current community planning group, after a local mother of Patrick Henry students appeared at a SCCC Board meeting and demanded to know what was being done to get the promised library built in San Carlos.
She was one of the many frustrated local residents who bought their homes on the assurance the growing community would have schools, a fire station and a library. Developers even showed potential buyers a plot mad showing the proposed library. The fire station was built on that site and bulldozers were continually flattening the most desirable spots for apartments. Soon there would be no suitable site left.
I learned from City Librarian Clara Breed that unless we brought pressure on the City Council to purchase property and build a library in San Carlos that mother and others residents would continue having to drive their students to the Benjamin Library in Allied Gardens to do their research.
She told me how to get the Council's attention and I applied a week ahead for my name to be placed on the docket for the following week's Council meeting. The Council members listened attentively, then admitted they were sorely uninformed about our community's needs and asked someone to look into the matter and bring it to the attention of the City Planning Commission.
When the subject came up on the Planning Commission's docket a large group of San Carlos residents drove in a caravan to the meeting and several other members of our group spoke before I made an impassioned plea for the Council to select a site for the proposed library before the best sites were all snapped up for service stations. The interest of our residents turned Council heads, and a week later the Clara called and asked if I would show her around the area. The site I thought best, next to our new fire station, had just been sold for a service station so I drove her around the neighborhood in my VW bus, pointing out other likely sites. She preferred a location near a shopping center, and the City soon purchased the present site on Jackson Drive.
Because of my work to secure a library site Alan Hitch, the Councilman for our District, invited me to turn the second shovel of dirt at the ground breaking ceremony for the new library. For a year prior to the opening of our library local residents had been donating books for the proposed library and I had stacks of books in my garage for the library. Prior to the opening the Librarian sent a truck to pick up the books which were sold by the first Friends of Library organization at the downtown library and the resulting funds used to purchase additional new books for the San Carlos Library."
A local committee will soon launch a fund-raising campaign to supplement City funds for the much-needed expansion of our library and since I firmly believe search engines can never replace printed books, I plan to help.
"Late in 1969 or early in 1970 I was appointed Library Chairman of the San Carlos Community Council, the predecessor to the current community planning group, after a local mother of Patrick Henry students appeared at a SCCC Board meeting and demanded to know what was being done to get the promised library built in San Carlos.
She was one of the many frustrated local residents who bought their homes on the assurance the growing community would have schools, a fire station and a library. Developers even showed potential buyers a plot mad showing the proposed library. The fire station was built on that site and bulldozers were continually flattening the most desirable spots for apartments. Soon there would be no suitable site left.
I learned from City Librarian Clara Breed that unless we brought pressure on the City Council to purchase property and build a library in San Carlos that mother and others residents would continue having to drive their students to the Benjamin Library in Allied Gardens to do their research.
She told me how to get the Council's attention and I applied a week ahead for my name to be placed on the docket for the following week's Council meeting. The Council members listened attentively, then admitted they were sorely uninformed about our community's needs and asked someone to look into the matter and bring it to the attention of the City Planning Commission.
When the subject came up on the Planning Commission's docket a large group of San Carlos residents drove in a caravan to the meeting and several other members of our group spoke before I made an impassioned plea for the Council to select a site for the proposed library before the best sites were all snapped up for service stations. The interest of our residents turned Council heads, and a week later the Clara called and asked if I would show her around the area. The site I thought best, next to our new fire station, had just been sold for a service station so I drove her around the neighborhood in my VW bus, pointing out other likely sites. She preferred a location near a shopping center, and the City soon purchased the present site on Jackson Drive.
Because of my work to secure a library site Alan Hitch, the Councilman for our District, invited me to turn the second shovel of dirt at the ground breaking ceremony for the new library. For a year prior to the opening of our library local residents had been donating books for the proposed library and I had stacks of books in my garage for the library. Prior to the opening the Librarian sent a truck to pick up the books which were sold by the first Friends of Library organization at the downtown library and the resulting funds used to purchase additional new books for the San Carlos Library."
A local committee will soon launch a fund-raising campaign to supplement City funds for the much-needed expansion of our library and since I firmly believe search engines can never replace printed books, I plan to help.
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