Full-time security sought for library

The Peterborough Public Library has seen fewer noise disturbances and empty beer cans in the washrooms since a parttime security guard was hired five months ago, according to a new city staff report – and now city council will be asked to fund a full-time guard for 2019.

The cost to the city would be about $59,300 for 2019.

Coun. Keith Riel, a library board member, thinks it’s worth it.

“We need security full-time (at the library),” Riel said in an interview Wednesday.

Last fall, city council turned down a request from the library board for $21,000 for part-time security at the library in 2018.

Library CEO Jennifer Jones had reported incidents such as inebriated people causing disturbances in the main branch on Aylmer St., prior to a $12-million renovation, and her staff was sometimes feeling unsafe at work.

But the library was still under renovation at the time and Mayor Daryl Bennett said it was premature to hire security when it wasn’t clear whether those incidents would persist in the new, open-concept design.

Yet within a few days of the library’s reopening in January, Jones told the library board there had already been three incidents of beer cans or syringes found in the men’s room trash cans.

The library board then voted to hire part-time security from its own budget, to start in April. A guard was hired to work evenings and weekends, when library supervisors are not present.

A new report from Jones shows that there were 13 reported incidents in March, prior to having part-time security; that figure drops to six in April, with a guard present.

The decrease continued in recent months too, she writes.

The most common incidents these days, Jones writes, are people smoking near the entrance, people sleeping in the library, minor noise disturbances and empty beer cans found in the washrooms.

Still, she notes an improvement.

“Overall, it appears there has been a reduction in the number of reported incidents at the library since security services began,” Jones writes.

Riel said he thinks full-time security at the library is necessary – and he thinks the city should pay for it.

“It’s their building,” he said. Talks for the 2019 city budget take place in January.