Toronto’s public library board has set up a confrontation with Mayor Rob Ford by voting to seek a 2.6 per cent budget increase rather than the 2 per cent it had recently been asked for and the 5 per cent cut the city had originally wanted.

At a rare standing-room-only meeting Thursday night, the board voted 8-2 to approve a plan submitted by Councillor Janet Davis that would avoid the closing of the library’s Urban Affairs branch and another cut that would force the system to purchase 18,400 fewer books and other items.

Davis said she was not willing to recommend cuts to library service to help the city deal with its fiscal problems. She called her proposal a “reasonable compromise”; the board had originally defied Ford by approving a request for a 3.3 per cent budget increase.

“I believe this is a significant service loss for this community,” Davis said, referring to the potential for closure of the Urban Affairs branch, “and I believe that eliminating 18,400 items from our collection is a loss of service. And I will not support that.”

The library board is composed of eight members of the public appointed under former mayor David Miller — Ford has not yet exercised his power to replace them — and five city councillors.

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The five civilian members present voted unanimously in favour of Davis’s plan. Of the five councillors, two members of Ford’s executive committee — Paul Ainslie and Cesar Palacio — voted against the plan, while executive committee member Jaye Robinson joined left-leaning Davis and Sarah Doucette in voting in favour.

Ainslie did not speak at the meeting. Afterward, he warned that city council may now simply make its own cuts to the library system to reduce its budget to the level requested by city staff.

“By basically defying what the budget committee has asked it to do, you’re deciding to send it back to City Hall, where our budget can be reviewed by people who aren’t familiar with the library system, and who can make cuts to it that may actually be more detrimental than something the board would,” he said.

After Davis spoke, civilian board member Kathy Gallagher Ross warned the board against turning the library into a “hot spot in the minds of the mayor and the new government.” She said, “I think we are forced with having to show that we are taking what’s going on in the city seriously” in order to avoid a “real confrontation with the mayor.”

Moments later, however, she voted in favour of Davis’ plan.

One of Ford’s assistants was present in the packed public gallery. Many applauded after the plan was approved.

The Urban Affairs branch, located at Metro Hall, primarily serves as a research resource for city staff and for researchers of municipal affairs. Its collection is not available for borrowing. But the city allows the public to pick up holds there, and it also provides computer terminals frequently used by job-seekers and others in need of assistance, said Councillor Adam Vaughan.

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Another library branch is scheduled to open in the vicinity of the Urban Affairs branch in 2014. Until then, the nearest branch is at City Hall, more than a kilometre away. Closing the branch would save more than $700,000 in total, according to city estimates, but only $100,000 of that in 2011.

The board’s total budget request is $171 million.

Under the plan that was rejected by the board in favour of Davis’s alternative, the collection housed by Urban Affairs would be transferred to the Toronto Reference Library.

City librarian Jane Pyper said the collection would be available for 60 hours per week, rather than 48, if the transfer occurred. She acknowledged, though, that the closure was proposed because of the city’s request for cost-cutting, not in an attempt to improve service.

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Board chair Matthew Church said the board should not allow the library to become the city’s budgetary “whipping boy.” He said the Davis proposal was a “pretty responsible response” to the city’s “draconian” request for cuts.
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