Security guards will soon be part of the Garden City Public Library’s workforce due to a decision made by the Village of Garden City’s Board of Trustees at a recent meeting.
During the recent meeting, the board’s library liaison, trustee Colleen Foley, proposed a change to the library’s request for a transfer of funds to pay for security guard services. The library originally requested funds to cover the employment of Securitas Security Services for 40 hours per week at an annual cost of $59,804. However, Foley explained that the contract with Securitas should be changed to employ security guards for the full 68.5 hours per week that the library is open, increasing the annual cost to $99,762. The board passed the motion unanimously.
“Our own commissioner recommended that we look and see about the full 68.5 hours,” Foley said. “This library is the only building in our community that is completely open to any person at any time and without issues of residency, someone can walk in.”
Marianne Malagon, the director of Garden City Public Library, pointed to a need for consistency as the reasoning for the increase in requested hours.
“The original request was for 40 hours because the library currently has employees that work the evening and weekend hours. The request was increased to 68.5 [hours] at the suggestion of the village because they felt that we should have the same type of security throughout all the hours that the library is open,” Malagon said.
No decision has been made on whether or not the current employees that the library uses for security will continue their roles, but Foley emphasized the importance of uniformity for library operations.
“To avoid conflict in the area of who’s doing what, I had conversations with the chairman of the board and he agrees that the security company would consistently provide the operations of security,” Foley said.
Director Malagon also reiterated the express thoroughness of the security company and the library’s confidence in the upcoming change.
“We have not set up all of the post orders or the duties of the new guard staffing, so I don’t know exactly how they’ll be different [from the current security], but they are required to go to frequent retraining by their company, for example,” Malagon said. “I wouldn’t say what they’re going to do is necessarily different, but these companies provide this kind of security at a number of sites and they bring that kind of experience and retraining and a standard across the board that they can follow up on and enforce.”
Securitas was also a carefully considered choice, Malagon explained.
“I worked with a consultant and I also worked with the Garden City Police,” she said. “We reviewed the responses to the RFQ—there were three companies—and we reviewed everything from the types of companies they worked with to their standards for their employees and we felt that Securitas had the most experience with public libraries.”
While major security threats have not arisen at the library recently, it has always been a priority to the board for various reasons.
“When I was hired by the library board, they told us that [security] was an initiative that they were interested in pursuing to make the library safe for all the staff and the patrons,” Malagon said. “Almost every incident that we have had here, whether it’s involved my security staff or the Garden City Police, has been extremely minor. However, there are still things that are disruptive to the use of the library for others. In some cases, it’s loss or theft of minor personal property. In some cases, it’s been disruptive behavior by library users, but these things can sometimes escalate into more serious matters.”
Malagon said that there is not an exact time frame for when the board’s decision will take effect, but library staff are working proactively.
“We are trying to move the process as quickly as possible, but we’re going through the paperwork side of things with the contracts and other procedural matters before everything will be switched over,” Malagon said.
Confidence in the initiative and its progress was clear from both the board of trustees and Malagon.
“I hope that every hour that our library is open to our public that people feel welcomed, safe and able to pursue whatever they came into the library to do that day with the maximum amount of comfort and security, so that’s my main objective,” Malagon said. “Hopefully we never really have to have the security except as a deterrent, but if we ever have any need for it, we feel that that the situation can be handled so that people can be safe—the public and the employees and the guards themselves.”
—Katie Fenton is a contributing writer for Anton Media Group
