The Unsavory Saga of the Hamline Midway Library
Note: You can find public feedback to the Hamline Midway Library debate, both letters to the CIB Board and online survey results, here, and you can find relevant emails I obtained through a public records request here. You can find my previous blog posts about this issue here and here.
As the St. Paul Public Library department (SPPL) prepares to select a consulting firm to do outreach and listening sessions around the future of the Hamline Midway Library, neighborhood residents deserve to understand the way the department’s leaders have been misleading the community about their intentions. Despite a constant refrain from public officials citywide about the importance of public engagement, in the case of our neighborhood library, SPPL has failed to come anywhere close to living up to that rhetoric.
I know this because, after submitting a public records request, I’ve been combing through all emails from SPPL’s leadership during the last calendar year that mention the words “Hamline Midway Library.” What I found — and just as importantly, what I did not find — should serve as a wake-up call to residents about how single-minded and top-down SPPL’s approach has been in shaping this decision.
I did not find any evidence that SPPL has taken the comments and concerns submitted by residents about this hugely important decision seriously. Not only have neighborhood concerns about historic preservation (as described in the City’s Comprehensive Plan) of the 1930s-era library building been ignored, but a request to engage in innovative, collaborative thinking that might enable us to create at a different site the kind of world-class library our neighborhood deserves has been dismissed out of hand by SPPL Director Catherine Penkert and Deputy Director Barb Sporlein.
SPPL’s top leadership could have and should have collaborated over the past few years with our district council ahead of the early April deadline to submit a Capital Improvement Budget (CIB) proposal for library improvement funds. (They still should consider working with the Hamline Midway Coalition, but there are no signs they plan to do that.) Instead, SPPL waited until the last minute to do a single public meeting this past March, at which time they had a clear preferred choice to tear down the historic library, and their actions since then have been reactive, secretive, and unfair given the weight of this decision. It has become clear that SPPL had a poorly thought-out plan to tear down the historic library and build anew on the same site, and any objections or roadblocks have simply been obstacles to overcome.
Lack of Hamline Midway Neighborhood Outreach
While SPPL conducted outreach and engagement related to its larger city-wide Facilities Master Plan in 2019, the engagement related specifically to the Hamline Midway branch has been minimal at best. To recap, SPPL conducted one in-person event asking people to envision the future of the Hamline Midway Library in January 2020. From that point until March 2021, there was no public engagement whatsoever about the plans for the library. As emails show, SPPL’s leadership had already made up its mind to tear down the current building and was determined to continue along that path until overwhelming opposition emerged.
It is also clear from the public record that despite public statements to the contrary, in March 2021 SPPL was not taking the renovation option seriously — and until they were forced to scramble and change course at the last minute, they certainly weren’t considering an expansion either. On March 24, SPPL Director Catherine Penkert sent an internal email that would eventually come directly to me in a revised format — note the crossed-out language — that reads as follows:
“In 2019, we picked up the subject of Hamline Midway capital investment again, including community engagement with a diverse group of more than 2,500 St. Paul community residents to understand the wants and needs of neighbors from their library… ̶I̶t̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶f̶r̶o̶m̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶s̶e̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶v̶e̶r̶s̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶s̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶o̶p̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶b̶u̶i̶l̶d̶ ̶a̶ ̶n̶e̶w̶ ̶b̶u̶i̶l̶d̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶e̶m̶e̶r̶g̶e̶d̶.̶ ̶E̶v̶e̶n̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶s̶i̶g̶n̶i̶f̶i̶c̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶r̶e̶n̶o̶v̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶,̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶u̶r̶r̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶b̶u̶i̶l̶d̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶l̶i̶m̶i̶t̶s̶ ̶p̶o̶s̶s̶i̶b̶i̶l̶i̶t̶i̶e̶s̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶e̶x̶p̶a̶n̶d̶e̶d̶ ̶a̶c̶c̶e̶s̶s̶i̶b̶i̶l̶i̶t̶y̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶c̶o̶m̶m̶u̶n̶i̶t̶y̶ ̶r̶e̶s̶o̶u̶r̶c̶e̶s̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶w̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶f̶a̶l̶l̶ ̶s̶h̶o̶r̶t̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶d̶e̶l̶i̶v̶e̶r̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶r̶o̶b̶u̶s̶t̶,̶ ̶c̶o̶m̶m̶u̶n̶i̶t̶y̶-̶o̶r̶i̶e̶n̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶l̶i̶b̶r̶a̶r̶y̶ ̶e̶x̶p̶e̶r̶i̶e̶n̶c̶e̶ ̶s̶o̶u̶g̶h̶t̶ ̶b̶y̶ ̶m̶a̶n̶y̶ ̶H̶a̶m̶l̶i̶n̶e̶ ̶M̶i̶d̶w̶a̶y̶ ̶n̶e̶i̶g̶h̶b̶o̶r̶s̶.̶ It is from those conversations that our two current options emerged.”
Because there were no public meetings related solely to the future of the Hamline Midway Library in 2019, the comments of the 2,500 residents are clearly related to the larger city-wide Facilities Master Plan, not our library specifically. To imply that those comments were sufficient to lead SPPL to its two initial choices — teardown and rebuild or renovation only — is terribly inadequate at best, misleading at worst. And while the idea that 2,500 community residents were engaged in this decision-making process may be technically true, there’s no evidence that Hamline Midway residents played any significant part in this process.
The only background information that anyone at the City can provide is that prior to March 2021 a single meeting took place in January 2020 in which neighborhood residents were involved in such discussions. SPPL has failed to provide any minutes, attendance list, or other documentation related to the number of residents at that meeting, how many of them actually live in the Hamline Midway neighborhood, the results of that meeting, or meaningful detailed data from its online surveys at the time.
What’s just as damning and clear from the email above is that at this early stage SPPL was not taking the renovation option seriously — never mind co-location — when it was telling the public it was a legitimate choice. The internal email with the crossed-out language from Director Penkert speaks for itself: SPPL never believed renovation to be a legitimate option, despite no evidence that the department had explored the benefits and possibilities of historic preservation and/or expansion. But they had no problem misleading people like me who were asking tough questions about their decision-making process and thinking.
And finally, it’s important to note once again that from late 2019/early 2020 until March 2021, there was no public engagement whatsoever about the plans for the library. The easy defense SPPL provides is that things were tough during the pandemic — and while true, SPPL knew full well it had a CIB proposal to prepare for in early 2021 and still made no attempt at community outreach — but SPPL’s leadership had already made up its mind to tear down the current building and was determined to continue along that path, with a last-minute wink and nod to community engagement. All that changed only when clear opposition emerged to their plans.
As a Hamline Midway Library Association board member advised Director Penkert in an email in April: “If you are up for it, maybe expressing a bit more remorse about how it wasn’t ideal that there was only one meeting in March about the two proposals might go a long way. But I understand that you might not want to go there.” Indeed, SPPL did not and still does not want to go there.
Ignoring and Rebutting Citizen Input
Despite a clear majority of respondents to a March 2021 online survey stating their preference for library preservation, it is clear from this early stage that SPPL was not taking the renovation option seriously, never mind the idea of building a new library co-located with our local rec center and elementary school that I and others have previously written about. I have also written previously about the rushed, flawed engagement process that was sprung upon neighbors at the last minute, and nothing I wrote in either piece has been disputed privately or publicly by SPPL leadership. In fact, in the 1800 pages of documents received from the City, there is little discussion or interest, if any, in exploring the concerns that many in the community have raised.
For example, the exchanges I found among SPPL leadership about the co-location proposal related to Director Penkert’s effort to ensure that SPPL, Parks and Recreation, and the City’s Office of Finance all coalesce around the message that it’s a bad idea. No meetings were held internally to discuss the viability of a co-located library or its potential benefit, and no effort was made by SPPL to consider interdepartmental collaboration to make such a project happen. There is one brief exchange in June in which Parks and Recreation seems to want to discuss the co-location idea further through discussions with Mayor Carter and SPPS Superintendent Joe Gothard — but there is no evidence that any subsequent discussions involving SPPL took place or that SPPL was interested in being part of such collaboration. The records show that SPPL had made up its mind that co-location was a bad idea based on a few internal conversations back in 2018, and no further exploration of its potential was needed.
However, SPPL employees did see fit to share multiple FYI emails with links to my blog posts and other critical comments — mostly, it seems, for the purposes of shooting down alternative visions to SPPL’s plan to tear down the existing building. I simply could not find any acknowledgement internally that any public pushback the department was receiving warranted discussion. Yet certainly the opposition had an effect, and as part of damage control SPPL was forced to include a renovate and expand option as a last-minute change to the funding proposal it submitted to the Capital Improvement Budget Committee in April, 2021.
One might argue that this renovate and expand option being on the table is evidence that SPPL is listening to community members, but a look behind-the-scenes reveals otherwise. In fact, from February to May of 2021, SPPL was scrambling to create an appearance of public engagement while it secretly worked to make its teardown and rebuild vision square with the City’s Comprehensive Plan. Quite simply, most people seem to believe we should consider alternatives to destroying a historic library just to replace it with a modern building approximately 20% larger, and the Comp Plan stands in opposition to demolition. And yet no emails can be found in which SPPL leadership attaches any significance to public opposition, despite this warning on March 31 from a planner in the Planning and Economic Development department:
“Demolition is going to be extremely unpopular in this particular neighborhood…I would expect STRONG opposition to demo, particularly given it is a publicly-owned building.”
Collaborating with HMLA as Cover for SPPL’s Desired Outcome
Emails I obtained indicate that SPPL has gone to great lengths to use the Hamline Midway Library Association (HMLA) as neighborhood cover for its covert plans. SPPL was providing confidential information to HMLA at least as early as April 8, prior to their official Capital Improvement Budget proposal (the CIB process being an incredibly difficult-to-understand, inside-baseball method of requesting City funds) having even been presented, and SPPL allowed HMLA leadership to provide edits to SPPL’s blog posts announcing its CIB intentions. SPPL’s Marketing and Communications Manager writes to HMLA on that date:
“Attached you will find a confidential blog post by Catherine Penkert that will publish tomorrow…It’s a message about Hamline Midway Library and the decision we are submitting in our CIB proposal…We wanted to send it to you as a confidential heads-up…please do let us know if a HMLA reference needs an edit.”
An HMLA board member, to her credit, responds in a long email including multiple suggested edits that “there are plenty of folks who are pretty mad right now that we took the stance [to tear down and rebuild the library] we did, to be honest, so using our group as cover could backfire on you right now.” The HMLA response goes on to provide several suggestions that SPPL do a better job of acknowledging opposing viewpoints, including advising SPPL that they “cut the link and the reference to [the HMLA] blog post” if they’re not going to include other posts, such as one of mine; “otherwise, it will feel unfair and overly biased toward HMLA to many.”
Yet it’s notable what HMLA does not say: At no time does HMLA mention any outreach or community engagement it did related to its 7-person decision to support the teardown and rebuild. The group — which has no public-facing presence and had not formally solicited outside views and does not represent diverse viewpoints — does mention in an email that they were considering an additional public meeting in late March, but opted against it after deciding to support the teardown and new build. All this while HMLA clearly admitted that many members of the community firmly disagreed with its stance.
Lest it appear, from SPPL’s initial request for edits to its public blog post, that they were receptive only to edits regarding HMLA references and not also to the blog’s tone and content, Director Penkert’s response to staff makes clear the two groups were working together in their public relations efforts:
“Really helpful. I understand where they are coming from on all [3 HMLA email responses]…If they don’t want us to reference their specific 4 points, I would like to keep some version of them with adapted wording.”
This series of correspondence in the week leading up to SPPL’s final CIB proposal makes clear just how determined SPPL was to present their rosy vision of a teardown and rebuild to the public despite significant neighborhood opposition, all while its closest ally was telling them to be careful not to use HMLA as cover for SPPL’s poorly thought-out plans.
On April 21, Director Penkert wrote to HMLA to inform them that “since we last connected with you” (when SPPL briefed HMLA of a confidential blog post that never went public), SPPL had made “slight adjustments” to the CIB proposal being submitted. Of course, these adjustments were not the least bit slight. SPPL was feeling the pressure from the public blowback and now claiming that “renovation and expansion of current building” was an option, just two weeks after the SPPL Deputy Director had claimed the idea was “not viable.”
What’s troubling about this sudden change of heart is that it reeks of a public relations ploy. SPPL has made no effort to consider preserving and expanding the historic library building — or to explore the idea of repurposing the current building and finding a different location for a new library — despite the many efforts other neighbors and I have made to engage SPPL leadership about these ideas. There is no evidence that they believe either preservation or expansion should be on the table. To the contrary — from crossed-out email drafts to me, internal emails between SPPL and PED, and a lack of engagement with historic preservation architects — SPPL should not be trusted to engage in an honest discussion about preservation and/or expansion.
Even an HMLA board member was caught off-guard by this last-minute change from SPPL. In her April 23rd response to Director Penkert, she asks for a private meeting to address a host of issues, one of which comes under the header “Why either/or proposal to CIB? What brought about the change to the CIB proposal between your unposted blog post and the public letter?” This email makes clear that SPPL intended to go public around April 9 with the teardown and rebuild proposal as its only option, but had second thoughts. HMLA, recognizing that SPPL had changed course, accepted that renovation was back on the table, but wanted to make sure that the co-location idea was put firmly to bed:
“Thank you very much for the update! I appreciate it. I think communicating clearly and firmly to community that the idea of a joint-use facility is not on the table as far as you’re concerned will be helpful so we can really start to focus on working together as a neighborhood on the best possible library given the viable options…we’ll wait on sharing anything about this with anyone else until the email goes out to the community.”
The collaboration between HMLA and SPPL was so tight that on April 30th, an HMLA board member emailed SPPL asking them to review an op-ed they planned to submit to the local Monitor newspaper. While the email sought only factual edits — just like with HMLA’s response to an earlier unpublished, confidential SPPL blog post in which HMLA added content advice — Director Penkert was determined to bolster SPPL’s standing via HMLA:
“Looks good from my end. In a perfect world, I would love for them to allude to the fact that the options presented this March emerged from a larger community [St. Paul-wide] process in 2019, but that’s their call on the framing.”
The notion that SPPL was advising HMLA on the tone of its op-ed — and vice versa — shows just how compromised the supposed public engagement process has been. I touch on this above, but the larger point is that in 2019–20 there was but one meeting as part of a Facilities Master Plan; no minutes exist from that meeting; no neighbors were aware of any proposed wholesale changes to the library; and no meaningful data exists from online surveys that were done at the time. Fast forward to 2021, SPPL finds an ally in HMLA, and together the two groups have worked in concert ever since to rig the decision-making process in their favor. All while SPPL is putting forth the notion that community engagement has been at the heart of the process.
Also notable is that on May 14 of this year, an HMLA board member emailed Director Penkert to say, “I was reminded again of how effective the two groups have been in getting their message out — the ones with their heart set on building preservation, and the ones with the big co-location “dream.”” — further evidence that at a time when SPPL had claimed that renovation and expansion were on the table, HMLA and SPPL were working together behind the scenes to shoot down the strong support for building preservation and/or the pejoratively-labeled “dream” of co-location. The co-location idea is the furthest thing from a dream, yet it requires honest engagement and hard work that SPPL has never been willing to do, while HMLA has done its best to silence and denigrate the idea.
Teardown in Conflict with St. Paul 2040 Comprehensive Plan
From a preservation standpoint, SPPL’s failure to seek feedback until the last minute from the city’s Heritage Preservation Commission about the ramifications of its rebuild vision is best encapsulated in a March 29 email from the SPPL Deputy Director titled “Can’t believe I didn’t think of this earlier given I’m a planner!!” SPPL informs its colleagues at PED that they’d like to “include information on how [a renovation or rebuild of the library] supports the City’s Comprehensive Plan, including any relevant neighborhood and redevelopment plans.”
The Historic Preservation Supervisor responds with a lengthy email noting that demolition “is in conflict with the Comprehensive Plan” and goes on to outline numerous policies that stand in opposition to a teardown of the library, including the prioritization of “publicly-owned facilities…for evaluation, designation and preservation” and the need to ensure that “city officials…have a working understanding and consider the importance of designation, preservation, and stewardship of historic and cultural resources…[and] collaborate across departments to jointly accomplish City preservation goals.” The Deputy Director of SPPL replies to this email by stating:
“Renovations of neighborhood libraries is consistent with just about every comp plan policy…The trickier issue, of course, is the new build option for Hamline. HP-6 is clear and concise, and doesn’t account for viability, cost effectiveness and ability of existing structure, post-renovation, to meet current and future community needs for its library. Renovation will improve conditions, functionality and preserve the building for sure, and it retains the challenging aspects of the structure and limits the ability to deliver today’s library the community says it needs and wants. A building addition is not viable option due to constraints of site, structure, operations and costs. Again, trickier issues to navigate and decide.”
Despite having no clear expertise in historic preservation, and no assessment from historic preservation specialists capable of evaluating the possibilities for expanding the library, SPPL still insisted at the end of March that doing an addition to the Hamline Midway library was not feasible. Just a few weeks later, after fierce opposition to their teardown and rebuild plan, SPPL reversed course and was suddenly putting a renovate and expand option firmly on the table. The trouble with this history is that any upcoming engagement sets up the public with two options, one of which SPPL has internally deemed a “not viable option.” How can we as participants in the discussion feel that we’re getting a fair shake with the cards stacked against one position in this manner?
What Happens Next?
SPPL is now set to spend upwards of $500,000 (that could be used far better elsewhere) on community engagement, after we lost the past 6 months to do just that if SPPL had cared enough to do so. A majority of residents appear to want the current library preserved, and many neighbors are ready and willing to engage in a discussion to build a dynamic new library at a site accessible to more people, while exploring options to repurpose the existing building — all things that would solve the library’s myriad problems, but which SPPL leadership refuses to consider.
I find it deeply troubling that so much money will go to an outside consulting firm to solicit public feedback. If SPPL seeks to engage people it claims to want to serve in its libraries, it should tap into the community leaders who have already built trust with our neighbors and know them best. Anyone who knows the Midway area well can identify these people, but I’d be surprised if SPPL has reached out to any of them to gain insight into our community and its needs in the last 6 months, never mind the last 2 years. When SPPL is ready to have a meaningful discussion about community engagement, preservation, renovation, and/or the building of a new library at a new location, there are a good many of us ready to sit down and talk.
The good news is that funds are likely available (assuming the money is approved in the Mayor’s final budget) to give the community the library we deserve. But no process should be undertaken that ends up dividing and ignoring us, which is clearly what SPPL leadership has done the past year: They misrepresented their efforts, used HMLA as cover, and gaslighted anyone who questioned them. If they are unwilling to backtrack on all the work they’ve done in secrecy to ram through their proposed teardown and rebuild, the planned community engagement process in the fall will also lack the transparency and collaboration we deserve. It’s time that we make our voices heard and come together to chart a new path forward.
