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Mending fences with the tool library
by Kaukab Jhumra Smith
Penned up behind a chain link fence on Ritchie Avenue, a 10-by-30-foot trailer houses the City of Takoma Park's Tool Lending Library. It looks industrial and forlorn among the cozy houses; a relic that harkens "back to the good old semi-socialist days," as longtime resident Dan Robinson described it.
Nearly six months after the Takoma Park City Council agreed to restore its $13,500 budget for the current fiscal year, the city's distinctive library of household tools remains under-utilized by city residents, and its future still remains uncertain.
Since 1977, the hardy facility has weathered at least one hostile city manager, two relocations, and several threats of budget elimination, followed by groundswells of public support. Despite the fact that many residents hail the tool lending service as an icon of Takoma Park's spirit, few residents actually use it.
Initially housed in the basement of the municipal building on Philadelphia and Maple Avenues, the tool library was later moved to a trailer next to the building to accommodate an expanding police department. This past July, prompted by the ongoing construction of the community center, then-City Manager Rick Finn moved the trailer to a plot on the public works facility on Ritchie Avenue, over the objections of tool library supporters and Ward 4 residents. They were promised that the facility would be spruced up, and the area around it landscaped.
The city has made good on its promise of refurbishment, spending $9,000 on new vinyl siding, repainting, repairing its leaky roof, and installing the chain link fence. But the landscaping with its promised flowers has yet to come through, although Public Works Director Alfred Lott said that the work is scheduled to begin soon.
Walt Rave, the tool librarian for the last 17 years, appreciates the improvements made by public works. But he is bothered by the trailer's relocation from its spot next to the municipal building. Because the tool library no longer benefits from people who pass by on their way to pay traffic tickets or return library books, usage has fallen from 12 to 15 visitors a week to an average of two to four visitors a week, Rave said.
"I tried to tell people," Rave said. "You put the tool library out of the way, this is what's going to happen."
Rave, whose $17-an-hour wages account for most of the tool library's budget, said he has received no funds for replacing or maintaining tools since the mid-1990s. He mends broken tools on his own welding equipment at home.
Matt Symkowick, a first-time homeowner, was the only visitor to the tool library on a Friday evening this November. He came to borrow a spade and a maddox for a landscaping project that he was working on with his father. The next morning, his father was the only visitor, back to exchange the spade for a shovel and to get a post-hole digger.
"Personally, there's very little need for me to own a post-hole digger," Symkowick said. "It costs $30 at Home Depot. To think of owning a piece of property that I'm only going to use one day or two days is not...a very constructive use of resources."
The desire to reduce consumption and waste - or simply, to save some money - was one of the reasons residents Richard Margoluis and Richard Levine formed a group called Friends of the Takoma Park Tool Library to counter Finn's attempts to cut the tool library's budget. Finn had argued that the tool library's low usage rates meant the city was paying at least $45 every time someone borrowed a tool. His calculations showed that for every year since 1999, only about six people a week borrowed tools.
Rave said those numbers are low because not everybody who visits the library checks an item out.
In May 2003, word spread of Finn's impending elimination of the tool library. Margoluis and Levine wrote letters to the editor and petitioned the city council to retain funding, They won a reprieve until the end of the calendar year, researching alternate sites for the trailer and exchanging regular memos with Finn and Lott.
In November 2003, with funds running out, Margoluis and Levine submitted a seven-page report to the council outlining recommendations for the tool library's future - including more weekend hours of operation, a permanent location in the new community center, increased advertising, and an active role by their own group in enhancing the library's visibility and raising funds for tools. The council granted another six months of funding, until the end of the 2003-2004 fiscal year, to give the group time to implement their plans.
In May 2004, it was déjà vu all over again. Finn's budget proposal for fiscal year 2004-2005 included no funding for the tool library at all. Another public outcry resulted in the city council restoring funding through the summer of 2005.
Now, after the exhaustive effort of the past year and half, progress on the recommendations for the tool library appears to have stalled. Library hours remain unchanged, and no additional funding appears to have been raised for tools. The city has tried to publicize the service more by putting a notice in its newsletter, as recommended by Margoluis and Levine, but there is still no regular advertising in local newspapers nor a promotional flyer.
Phone and email messages left with Margoluis over several days were not returned for this story. When contacted, Levine requested no comment at this time.
City officials remain supportive of the library but indicate disagreement about finding a permanent place for the tool library at the community center. Ward 4 Councilmember Terry Seamens said that he would have trouble backing supporters' hopes of moving the tool library there without more successful activity. However, Ward 1 Councilmember Joy Austin-Lane said she's "pretty sure" most of the city council supports having the tool library move into the community center once construction is complete.
But City Manager Barbara Matthews, who joined the city after much of the summer discussion of the tool library was over, said she had heard of neither a plan for the tool library's eventual relocation to the community center nor for its discontinuation.
"I would say the tool library is basically in the same situation as any expenditure of the city," Matthews said. "It's reviewed on an annual basis by the council, in conjunction with the annual budget process."
As talk of the next budget debate draws closer, Rave continues to sit in his trailer behind the chain link fence three days a week. He's there Tuesdays and Fridays from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. He may not get many visitors, but he does get calls looking for free do-it-yourself advice.
When the phone rings, he answers the way he has for years. "Takoma Park Tool Lending Library. How may I help you ?"
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