June 10, 2006
 
Cabell Library Patrons Run ‘Gauntlet’ to Receive Services; Reopening Plaza May Just ‘Move’ Problem
 
By Tony Rutherford
Huntington News Network Writer
 
Huntington, WV (HNN) --- When Clint Eastwood ran “The Gauntlet,” he dodged mob assassins in bringing a witness to testify in Phoenix, AZ.
 
Patrons of the Cabell Huntington Public Library must in the words of Judy Rule, library director, run a “gauntlet” of cursing, panhandling, and intimidation to utilize services at the downtown facility.
 
“They drink, smoke marijuana, pass their bottles, and urinate against the wall,” Rule said. Every morning a library employee has to “clean up the outside bathroom.”
 
Problems with harassment on the Fifth Avenue end of the 9th Street Plaza have caused library patrons to “go to the branches” and say “I’m not going back [to the] downtown library.”
 
The Ninth Street Plaza project which Huntington City Council votes on Monday, June 12, 2006, will reopen the road to two way traffic, remove the fountain, and remove most locations where people can sit.
 
Both Rule and Steve Cristo, assistant director of the library, have mixed feelings about the impact of the project. “We really do not think it will solve the problem,” Cristo said, adding that “it will move the problem, not solve it.”
 
Charles Holly, director of planning, indicated that the design can be “modified” to one with “serpentine tops that you can not sit on.”
 
Unfortunately, the Plaza problem can not be expediently solved, said Huntington Police Chief Arthur E. “Gene” Baumgardner. Although the space around the library has a “conglomerate of problems,” other sections of the city have situations “that require a police presence all the time.” Drawing an analogy to traffic control issues, Baumgardner explained that without cruisers on the Interstate, Fifth Avenue and Third Avenue, people “drive like children with no respect for the safety of others.”
 
Although the department often receives in excess of 300 calls a day, Baumgardner plans to use one of the currently training rookies to walking a downtown beat.
 
“We’re getting three more people trained. I plan to have an officer walking downtown with his eye on the plaza… which should help the problem.”
 
Despite conditions that require the library to hire its own security and that prevents some parents from allowing their children to come to the Downtown Library for safety reasons, Rule complained of police response times to problems, including a drunk directing a Music on the Plaza concert.
 
Undercover officers have made arrests both on the Plaza and at Pullman Square for drug dealing, Baumgardner said, but explained that “you don’t take a drunk to jail, you take them to the State Hospital.”
 
As Rule pleaded with council for “help” in dealing with the situations “outside the building,” several potential alterations for the Plaza construction were advanced. Currently, plans call for beginning construction at the Third Avenue end. Holly said that. Perhaps, a portion of the area in front of the library could be designated as a “construction zone” to reduce or alleviate problems during the 120-150 days construction schedule.
 
The people hanging around the plaza near the library are not homeless, Rule said. The library did some research to come to that conclusion which supports the concern that where will these people flock when the Ninth Street Plaza is redone?