editors note: apologies to my readers, this post was written almost 2 weeks ago- and I’ve been thinking about refining it and finishing, while swamped with work. Many late nights, early mornings, bringing two new employees up to speed.
It’s really easy to blame the kids for the Dayton Metro Libraries decision (director Jeffrey Trzeciak) to close the East Branch from 2:30 to 5 M-F, so kids from Belmont High and Middle School can’t come over and fight.
It’s also really easy to blame a whole lot of other people: the principals of the school, Dionne McDole and Kimani Smith, who can’t be bothered to make sure their kids behave, the superintendent, David Lawrence for refusing to provide busing to high school students to get them home, or, as an alternative, provide enough after school programming to keep kids engaged, the school board- which is either impotent or incompetent depending on which way the wind is blowing, the City of Dayton, that shut down our entire network of neighborhood rec centers- only keeping 3- minimally open, the Mayor, Jeff Mims, who spent his entire life as an educator, union leader, school board member (both local and state) and claims to just be a “kid from Dayton,” the parents, who can’t make sure their kids aren’t punks, the head of RTA, Bob Ruzinsky, who refuses to make RTA easy for kids to ride, RTA for coming up with the insane hot mess called the “bus hub” downtown, that’s been a public nuisance since it opened, yada yada yada….
The reality is, no one really cares about what’s going on with our kids in this city.
We’ve treated them like pawns in the stupid desegregation implementation and despite there being nothing to desegregate anymore, we’re still moving them around like chess pieces. There are few small businesses left to hire them for after school jobs in their neighborhoods, hell, the newspaper won’t even hire kids to deliver the last 1000 actual newspapers that they still deliver in Dayton. What’s a kid got left to do?
Unfortunately, kids have watched the adults in this country do the same thing for the last few decades- with the divisions between the red and blue morons rivaling the crips and bloods or the Hatfields and the McCoys. Our whole damn society has become one of dysfunctional division.
Now, I don’t want to sound like an old guy (which is what I am) but, I started working a real job when I was 12 after school. Granted, it started out as cleaning, washing windows, and hooking up the stereo equipment in a family owned hi-fi shop, but as time went on, I was selling equipment too. I think at the peak, I was making a whopping $2 an hour, but could buy all my equipment for half of retail. My friends were working as rink guards at the ice rink- a city job, or life guarding, or working at, ahem, the library. There were opportunities- and there were recreational activities available. Scouting was still a thing. There were also school sports, band, choir, theater, auto-repair, and all kinds of other school connected resources to keep us out of trouble.
Why don’t we see these kinds of problems in the suburbs? Probably because the kids go to neighborhood schools, have lots of extra-curricular activities, opportunities for jobs in more places, better parks and recreation options and they aren’t all poor.
We know that poverty plays into this, since so many participation activities now cost- the ones that used to be free.
In the mean time, people who need to use the library (the one we pay for it to be open- the very same library system that wants more of our tax dollars this Nov 5 2024) can’t. I’m no fan of handing a lot of these quasi-governmental organizations our tax dollars because they have zero elected oversight. It’s more tax us and forget about accountability. I know this well, because I fought the library (as opposed to fighting in the library) and watched them weasel.
Word on the street is that the new director got a hefty raise over the old one, and he’d barely been here a year. Why? And why do we have 3 different library systems in one county? Do we really need to pay 3 directors? Do we need to pay for 3 websites? More waste and duplication.
We had a talk about this at the office as a PR challenge and how could better communications avoid this absolute travesty. How do you fix it? It’s not by putting more cops out to put kids in juvie for fighting. Cops cost a lot more money than alternatives, and the real question to solve isn’t the fighting- it’s the breakdown of society due to feeling powerless.
One member of my team brought up the movie “American History X“- a movie I’d missed somehow. He brought up this scene:
I watched the movie the next night, and it made me delay this post even longer. The question comes down to a basic principle of marketing, “expectancy theory.”
Our kids are expected to fail, we treat them as if we want them to fail, we provide leadership in this country that demonstrates failure, we communicate that our country is now in failure, and somehow, the only answer to “make it great again” is to reward a lying, criminal, sociopath who says the same kind of garbage that Adolph Hitler fed the Germans in 1933- that lead to one of the greatest disasters of modern history. Yeah, Pogo was right, “we have met the enemy and he is us.”
I’m a great believer in thinking globally but acting locally. It’s part of the reason I believe my neighborhood is better than your neighborhood. And, if we took what worked here, and spread it around the rest of the city, the county, and stopped accepting mediocre leadership with no vision, no answers and no plan, we would see what the closing of the library really is- a white flag of surrender.
They all gave up.
And somehow a few school age kids got the attention of the community- the only way they could, and we refused to hear the message we’re missing- we’re failing at this thing called civilization. It’s really fitting that it’s the library that’s closing. The place we store the history, the knowledge, the ideals of the past, the present and even the predictions of our future.
None of these people who we pay big bucks to lead, seem to have any plan on how to hear those kids, and give them the platform to tell us their grievances, and to allow them to have a say in their future. Because, I guarantee, if you listen more than you talk, you’ll realize, respect costs very little. Retribution, costs us all.
to be continued….
Song: “The Library’s Closed (But Who’s to Blame?)” by David Esrati
But the RTA is being consistent. They don’t want to make it easy for ANYONE to use their services.
And we could have rec centers and after-school extracurriculars if the city would quit giving sweetheart tax breaks. Provide the money, the programs will follow. Another way we could finance is to eliminate football.
This is a very troubling matter, David. Thank you for bring it to our attention. As a life long recipient and supporter of local library services and benefits, I feel certain most citizens support these community benefits. As to the recent closure during weekday afternoons of the Southeast Branch library due to safety issues (teen fighting on site), library leadership have a duty to protect all library patrons, staff and property. Parents have the primary duty to manage the lives of their children. School personnel also share that duty, and have policies in place, while the students are in their care. Libraries also have a duty of care and policies to guide them in their operations. Library patrons and staff have a reasonable expectation to be safe and secure while on library property to enjoy the services they use and which taxpayers subsidize. It is not the library’s responsibility to be daycare monitor and police protector to teenagers who act out and ruin the calm library environment for everyone there. Where is the personal responsibility of these teens? Do they have a library card with proper ID? Where are their parents? Are they governing the behavior of their children and following through with a proper transport plan from school to home? It should not fall upon community responsibility and resources when those who are able to act mature and parent fail to do so. Here are links to Southeast Branch hours, library leadership, and to an upcoming library meeting for a community conversation regarding recent developments. There is a solution to every problem and this is not insurmountable. Bratty kids are no fun for anyone and must be checked. Children must be kept busy and engaged in productive pursuits. Southeast Branch library hours: https://www.daytonmetrolibrary.org/news/southeast-branch-hours/ Library leadership: https://www.daytonmetrolibrary.org/leadership/ Library meeting for a community conversation (sign up): Tuesday, October 22, 6 – 7 pm Main Library, Eichelberger Forum 215 E. Third Street, Dayton, OH https://www.daytonmetrolibrary.org/news/safe-libraries/ Inaction is an action. There will be more trouble ahead if this is ignored. Parents and their kids, school personnel and board members, library staff and patrons,… Read more »
Thank you for your reporting on this issue. I appreciate that you are passionately concerned about HOW the money is spent and not just believing that tossing another $1 million at a program will fix it. (At what point is giving more money to wasteful institutions just rewarding and encouraging their previous behavior?)
I whole heartedly agree that these are symptoms of a larger issue of the expectations and treatment of teenagers. I just think you have too much faith in the ability of the government to fix this issue. IMO most government involvement has undercut the more important aspects of character development such as the nuclear family, voluntary community groups (churches, boy scouts, clubs, etc), and young work ethic, but that’s a discussion for another time.
Keep up the good work!
Thank you, David, for this report.
Dayton Metro Library just posted this on FB: The recent events at our Southeast Branch have created an opportunity for us to have a community conversation regarding the safety of our patrons, staff, and the communities we serve. Please join us for an important community conversation with representatives from the Dayton Metro Library, Dayton Police Department, and Dayton Public Schools about keeping our libraries safe and open. Join the conversation at the Main Library in the Eichelberger Forum (215 E Third St., Dayton Ohio) at 6pm on October 22. Submit your questions and suggestions before the event here: DaytonMetroLibrary.org/news/safe-libraries/
It’s the little animals fighting, so why would anyone else be to blame?
The 13% ruin everything they touch. The only mistake our Founding Fathers made.
Billy the Kid, you are channeling your inner Riddler. Who are the 13% you speak of and what mistake was made by the Founding Fathers? Don’t be shy. Spell it out for us.
The sad reality is no decent person would even want to walk through the halls of Belmont HS while the students are there. It’s out of horror movie. Dayton is leading the charge of turning a once beautiful 1st world city into a completely corrupt, racist and worse than a dictatorship democrat run 3rd world hell hole. Parents so bad their kids shut down the library. Ahh the democrats, nothing more than a national cancer.
@ Snookie, who claims:
Why bless your little heart. You think that Dayton never used to be racist but suddenly became racist?
You seem to be unaware of the system racism and redlining that meant minority neighborhoods in your “once beautiful 1st world city” didn’t have equal access to mortgages and insurance.
Your “beautiful” city segregated pupils and teachers by race, denied black students access to swimming pools in high schools, and excluded black high school teams from the city athletic conference.
In your beautiful city, African Americans weren’t allowed to work at Rike’s department store downtown or at NCR. African Americans marched for their rights in Dayton because it was in fact a “3rd world hell hole” for people of color.
It’s true that poverty in Dayton city limits has increased over the years, but will you admit why that happened? It’s because the attempted solution to the decades of discrimination in the city was forced bussing but only in Dayton Public Schools. Thousands of racist white families fled to the suburbs.
David Esrati is wrong about many things but one thing he’s right about is that our many little principalities in Montgomery County and the entire metro area mean that people with privilege can escape to their own little domes where they don’t have to care what happens to other people. If the desegregation order had applied to the entire county, if there were a consolidated city/county government, perhaps some actual progressive change could have been brought about.
Instead we’re left with people who are ignorant of their own region’s history spouting nonsensical claims.
I find it quite satisfying that people like Billy and Snookie get to live in a prison of their own psychological making, surrounded by fear from their own delusions.
Imagine being such a giant pussy that as a grown ass adult you are afraid of walking down the halls of a high school. LOL.
And these are the same cowards and wimps who want to “take over” America.
LOL.