Regina City Council recently proposed a 27 percent hike in water rates over the next three years to pay for an expansion to the wastewater treatment plant. The $112 million expense should be offset by a forgotten but sensible option-streamlining our libraries.

In 2004, a Regina Public Library report recommended closing the Glen Elm, Connaught, and Prince of Wales branches, and the Dunlop Art Gallery. Prince of Wales was poorly attended, Connaught was falling apart, and Glen Elm had both problems. Meanwhile, the gallery cost $1000 per day and the unfunded liability of the pension plan was enormous.

The report showed that our libraries cost taxpayers $61 per capita, the second highest number in Canada, and far beyond Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg (each $33 to $36), and even Saskatoon ($51). Yet even the proposed changes would only help libraries "live within an existing level of support from Regina taxpayers that is among the most generous in Canada."

We all remember what happened. Library lovers came out in full force with meetings and demonstrations. Unionized teachers had new class projects for their elementary students: "Save our library" posters. Children too young to understand engineering reports and multi-million dollar budgets were made lobbyists on school time, hanging signs on fences for all to see. Yet, after all this, polls showed half the city's residents still supported the closures.

City Hall ‘postponed' the proposed changes-permanently it seems-and watched the report's predictions come true. Library budgets went $200,000 in the red last year, and will sink $600,000 further this year, despite a 4.9% mill rate hike for 2007. This year our libraries will get $14 million in public money and only $1.3 million from other sources-half of the latter lost on a fundraising lottery the RPL received a grant to operate.

Even worse, the latest RPL budget warns, "Whether new or renovated, the eventual rejuvenation of the Central Library will be the single largest RPL project in 50 years," and includes $500,000 for a new chiller. Avoiding all restraint, $1.4 million was earmarked for new library materials, even though "the average book circulates about three times per year." It adds, our libraries have 20 percent more programs than five years ago, yet have 26 percent less participation.

It's time to dust off the original plan. If our per-capita library spending was reduced 40 percent (leaving more per capita than Winnipeg) and mill rates grew by 2 percent each year, Regina taxpayers would save $114 million by 2025. Guess what-we've just paid for our wastewater treatment facility.

Our city anticipates a whopping $609.3 million on capital spending by 2025. Three less libraries would help cover those costs and leave as many libraries per resident as Saskatoon and Winnipeg and far more than Edmonton and Calgary. Friends of the library can tell us all they want that we're richer to keep our crumbling and poorly attended branches. When the bill comes in, we'll know the truth.