City cuts hours at Rondo library

The Rondo Community Outreach Library will have reduced hours until Labor Day. City officials have cited ongoing safety and staffing issues as concerns.
The reduced hours have generated pushback from area residents who use the library and the University Avenue/Dale Street area. While the library is heavily used by community organizations and a few city committees, the issues of crime and bad patron behavior have come to a head.
Reduced hours took effect earlier this summer. The library has been closed on Sundays and shuts its doors at 2 p.m. on Saturdays.
Rondo already has security staff. It shares specialized staff with other libraries including safety specialists and a social worker. It is expected to have its own safety specialist later this month.
St. Paul Police were called to the library 262 times in the last seven months. That is up from 2024 calls. Many calls are for disorderly conduct but others include the crimes of trespassing, narcotics and two counts of sexual misconduct.
Library spokesperson Stacy Optiz said that “ongoing challenges” have made it difficult to deliver safe services at the library. The decision to reduce hours was made with the safety and interest of patrons in mind, she said.
Library users and community groups that meet at the library are unhappy with the reduced weekend hours. Rondo is a well-used library, with many young people, families and children seen there using services. Its Internet access is heavily used, to the point that there is a separate section for adult users. Many groups use its meeting rooms.
But it is also a library where there are problems with crime, unaccompanied children and bad behavior. Some neighborhood residents cite area problems, especially in the Unidale Mall parking lot, as spilling into the library.
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, (AFSCME) is the larger of the two library worker unions. The other is the Professional Employees Association (PEA).
AFSCME also represents Department of Parks and Recreation workers. The union issued a statement citing what it calls “unsafe staffing levels” at parks and libraries.
The union also called out dangerous situations at Rondo and the lack of a plan to address those issues.
The lack of staffing has meant people who attend scheduled programs at libraries have had to be turned away. In the AFSCME statement, Local 1842 president and library associate Isaac Mielke noted that Rondo is the only library with reduced hours. He said the fact that libraries in better-off neighborhoods remain open and have staff moved to those place shows city priorities.
“We serve hundreds of kids every week – many who don’t have safe places to go during the day. But library staffing is so thin that we have had to cancel programming, turn kids away, and close our doors early,” he said.