Seriously, the first six times I read this I thought it was from the Onion:
Telling her mother that she wanted to come to the aid of a library
under attack, 11-year-old Sydney Sabbagha stood at the podium before
the Oak Brook village board.“I used to go to the library
knowing there were people there to help me find a book. Now there is no
one to help me,” Sydney said solemnly. “It will never be the same
without the people you fired.”Sydney nestled back into her
seat, but that didn’t stop 69-year-old criminal attorney Constantine
“Connie” Xinos from boldly putting her in her place.“Those who
come up here with tears in their eyes talking about the library, put
your money where your mouth is,” Xinos shot back. He told Sydney and
others who spoke against the layoffs of the three full-time staffers
(including the head librarian and children’s librarian) and two
part-timers to stop “whining” and raise the money themselves.“I don’t care that you guys miss the librarian, and she was nice, and she helped you find books,” Xinos told them.
“Don’t
cry crocodile tears about people who are making $100,000 a year wiping
tables and putting the books back on the shelves,” Xinos smirked,
apparently referencing the fired head librarian, who has advanced
degrees and made $98,676 a year. He said Oak Brook had to “stop
indulging people in their hobbies” and “their little, personal, private
wants.”
Personal, private little wants. Likelearning to read. If ever anyone deserved to make $100K, it’s a librarian, but naturally things like learning are for pussies. The only people who should earn six figures are professional athletes and members of Congress!
I swear, every time some cop or teacher or firefighter’s in the news for making slightly more than whatever the reader thinks he or she should make, this argument comes up. Everybody gets in a mad rush to justify and apologize and negotiate just how big a pay cut people who perform vital community services should have to take to make their existence palatable to smug assholes like this Xinos twit. Truly, the argument ought to be how much MORE the librarians should be making, and how you can afford an extra five bucks on your tax bill to make that happen:
“Everybody thinks Oak Brook is rich and has all kinds of resources, but
we don’t,” Niemeyer says. “Oak Brook has very low taxes and that’s a
point of pride in this town.”
The Chicago suburb of Oak Brook is near where Mr. A works. It has low taxes because it has a gazillion strip malls, shopping malls, and hotels. When you have immense commercial revenue you can afford to ease off homeowners somewhat, but you should recognize that that being the case, maybe a library isn’t an insanely luxurious thing.
Also, this guy is just a total butthole:
“I understand that my philosophy is conservative,” Xinos says, adding
that government just needs to catch bad guys, put out fires, fix the
streets and make sure buildings are sturdy.He campaigned,
successfully, against a plan to bring subsidized housing for seniors
into town by declaring, “I don’t want to live next to poor people. I
don’t want poor people in my town.”
Maybe the Republicans have finally found their presidential candidate for 2012.
A.