Activist’s Flip Surprises Reader
Staff editorial

No doubt about it, activists take city politics very seriously. When council members switch sides and flip on issues, it can cause an activist to flip out.

Years of disappointment and loss have caused many activists to fall into one of three categories: 1) disengaging from politics altogether, 2) becoming cynical and grousing about almost everything, or 3) going completely nuts.

A blog reader responded this week, “A letter to Saddleback Valley News on Sept. 14 made me wonder if I was seeing things. The writer of the letter has been an activist and one of the biggest critics of the library since before it was built. It was a surprise to see his letter inviting people to visit the library.”

Activists in Category 2 are frequently criticized for becoming cynical and grousing about almost everything. Their family members might say to them, “Can’t you say something positive for a change?” It can cause an activist to slip into Category 3 and make a statement like, “Go check out a book at the library.”

Activists who want to write something positive should either find something that’s truly positive or write about the weather.

The library was built more than 10 years following a measure on the ballot in which Mission Viejo residents rejected breaking away from the county system to build a city library. It made plenty of people mad to see the library being built so soon after voters said no. Activists loudly objected when the vote was ignored by council members who forged ahead without community support.

Activists lamented for years about the new library (lack of books, shortage of quality titles, escalating expense, a design-build contract that was awarded without competitive bids, etc.). Currently, the library acknowledges only 51 percent of its cardholders are even Mission Viejo residents. Alongside the library’s confusing Website claim of “738,447 circulation,” it states the library has only 155,707 items in its collection.

When the library was finished more than 10 years ago, it apparently took all the earmarked city tax dollars, grant money and donations just to open the doors. Savvy library visitors noticed something was missing: books. The items sitting on shelves looked like books, but they tended to be castoff donations from patrons’ personal collections or something one might find at the dollar table in a bookstore. It was strange to walk into a library and find so little to read.

Cities of comparable size – particularly places with high literacy rates – boast collections of 1 million books (with popular titles, not discards from patrons). Criticism of the library hasn’t led to dramatic improvement, and most critics stopped wasting their breath.