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All are slated for dumping onto other state agencies. The operative word is "dumping" because the agencies that will receive them will not receive any money to run them. For instance, when the people with degrees in library science were told on Jan. 21 that they were history, they were also told that the library would shift to Florida State University, "unfunded." That's right, the state is not planning to give FSU any money to run any of the programs.
"It ain't gonna happen," says T.K. Wetherell, the former Florida House Speaker who became Florida State University president in January. Though he's a Democratic diplodocus in a sea of sharp-toothed Republican velociraptors, Wetherell has a way of coming out intact while others bleed. "No freebie," he says. If the State Library goes to FSU, so does the entire Gray building, its contents and the resources to run it.
Including that damned mastodon.
To give you an idea of the scale of Tallahassee, Wetherell was on the phone in his office at FSU just a five-minute drive west. The R.A. Gray building is smack across from the Capitol buildings, old and new. Right next door is the Florida Supreme Court -- you know, where the decision was made to hand the U.S. Presidency to George W.
Tuesday, Jan. 21, was not a good day to be at the Gray building in terms of vibes. Librarians, usually a discreet opinionless sort, at least on the job, were openly dissing Jeb Bush, the W bro they hold responsible for their fate.
"There aren't any library jobs in Tallahassee," says one librarian, fretting over how she will keep up the payments on the house she bought two years ago. "They told us by July 1, all of us will be out of here."
Jan. 21 wasn't the first day; it was just the worst day.
She and others can only long for the days when the Bureau of Archaeological Research, the State Library and the Museum of Florida History were too quiet, cerebral and complex to attract much attention from politicians.
The Bureau of Archaeological Research, especially, enjoys a low profile that generally keeps it out of budget-slashers' sights. Many politicians possess only a dim awareness of what the scientists do in the offices and labs they occupy scattered throughout the Gray building.
Typically politicians in Florida's capital know more about mascots than mastodons, more about preserving a game lead than preserving a lead cannon. When Jeb Bush's interim Secretary of State Jim Smith recently got a peek at the Bureau's vaults, for instance, he seemed mildly surprised to learn that Tallahassee had Indian mounds. The dialog went like this, according to staffers' accounts:
"Are these Indian artifacts?"
"Yessir, they're Indian artifacts."
"Are they from Miami?"
"No, sir, they're from Tallahassee."
"Tallahassee Indians? Seminoles? Go Seminoles!"
"No, sir. They're Apalachee Indians."
"Like Apalachee Parkway?"
This being a main drag through the capital.
"Yessir, like Apalachee Parkway."
The upshot of the meeting was that Jim Smith learned a little something about Native Americans in our great state, but as for the Bureau: "Now we're on their radar screen, and they're starting to dismantle us," an archaeologist says.
In Jim Smith's defense, he is not part of the dismantling. He never hurt this area when he was Secretary of State during the late 1980s through the mid-'90s, in hindsight the glory years. He stepped in the past year to take over the Department of State at Jeb Bush's behest when Katherine Harris left for the big pond. Smith was long gone by bloody Tuesday, when some 50 library staffers were told they'd be shelved.
Also during that post-Smith meeting, members of the museum and scientific research staffs were informed their ranks would be cut by 25 percent; stay tuned for the names, they were told.
But "stay tuned" was a redundant order. Antennae were already up, given the pre-Christmas mass layoffs at the Department of Education, when security guards hustled staffers out without so much as the chance to clean out their desks. At this sister agency of cultured and historical learning, workers held the hope that no self-respecting state would agree to operate without a state museum and a state library.
"They have managed to turn a really satisfying place to work into a grim place," says a veteran archaeologist with the Bureau. "They have been trying to get rid of people who have been here 20 years, 25 years and have slowly built up certain areas. They split up their jobs among the remaining staff, but because the jobs are so specialized, the remaining staff can't do the work. Then the Republicans say, 'You see the [lousy] way the state is working? We need to privatize.'
"What really rankles is that 10 years from now these people will be long gone. Someone else will have to come in here and painstakingly build it all back up."
Brent Tozzer, whose wife is pregnant, was laid off on Christmas Eve. An anthropologist and educator by training, Tozzer put together the annual Children's History Day at the museum and handled visiting groups and other educational missions. "This was after doing more with less for months," Tozzer says of his layoff. "People thought the museum might be immune."
Schoolchildren learned things they couldn't anywhere else, he says.
"Two floors above [in the State Library], you learn from books. In the museum, you learn from things. Tools. Artifacts. Children always like the Grandma's Attic exhibit because they can touch things, try on old clothes. In other exhibits, you see the things that have sunk to the bottom of the ocean on ships. You learn how diverse our history is, the mixed ancestry of the Seminoles. People don't always know about the land battles and the sea blockade in Florida during the Civil War. Or that the Tuskegee Airmen trained in Tallahassee during World War II."
Tozzer says if the Department of Environmental Protection takes over, it can do a good job running the museum. "But I just have the feeling the financial squeeze is on them as well."
Saundra Kelley, a freelance marketer and museum volunteer, was stunned to learn of Tozzer's departure when she called in early January to see about arranging this year's Children's Day. "If it doesn't make money, the state doesn't seem to want it," she says, consternation in her voice. "Who's going to teach our children about Florida history at the museum?"
Maybe famed empire-builder T.K. Wetherell, now in charge of college students in his new tenure at FSU, will end up teaching the little kiddies as well as the big kids. No one who knows him would doubt his ambition to take on new tasks. And why not?
At least the former football hero at FSU won't take on the job without money to succeed. "We are willing to help them if it makes sense," he says. "But I am not willing to be the heavy and be the guy who killed the State Library. The governor's done his thing now [made his budget-cutting proposal], and the whole mess is in the Legislature."
The St. Petersburg Times and the Orlando Sentinel have reported the library transfer as if it were a done deal, axing 41 jobs and saving $3-million. (Museum and other cuts would eliminate 14 other jobs.) Is the administration backtracking already?
According to Jeb Bush's press secretary, Elizabeth Hirst: "Discussions are under way with Florida State University about possibly housing these books, but no final decision has been made." She declines to address the philosophical questions about the irony of proposing a $30-million "Just Read, Florida!" initiative while closing the State Library, except to say, "Gov. Bush's No. 1 priority in his second term is reading," and his proposed spending on all those hometown libraries across the state is proof.
For his part, Wetherell confirms the discussions but says he will submit his own plan to the Legislature to take over the Gray building. The No. 1 condition: $$$$.
Republican domination of the House and Senate notwithstanding, Wetherell is a master at wheeling and dealing in that universe. So don't count out the continued survival of the Gray building, the Florida Collection of books and documents, the underwater archeology department and all the other neat things that building houses. The mastodon that prowled the earth eons ago may yet be spared another Florida governor's budget cycle.
Andrea Brunais is a freelance writer and former Tallahassee journalist who lives in Bradenton.
The Board of Directors of the Florida Historical Society is calling for concerned citizens, historical and cultural organizations, scholars, authors, and others to attend a summit from 2 to 5 p.m. on Feb. 19 at the Alma Clyde Field Library of Florida History, at 435 Brevard Ave., Cocoa. The purpose of the summit is to formulate a unified response to the proposed closure of the State Library and other agencies and to devise a plan for presenting this unified response to Florida legislators. The focus of the summit will be non- political, but comprehensive. Those planning to attend are asked to call Dr. Nick Wynne at 321-690-1971 or e-mail him at wynne@flahistory.net as soon as possible.
