City library agrees to accept high school student IDs at check-out

The Pleasanton City Council has agreed to expand a pilot program to allow all high school students to use their identification cards when checking out books and other materials from the city’s public library.

The action followed a favorable report by the library and Pleasanton school district that enabled 80 freshmen from Amador Valley High School to use their student IDs at the library during the past school year.

With student IDs having a bar code added in the new school year, which starts in August, the cards can now be read by library code equipment, easing the check-out process.

The council’s action, which followed a 3-1 favorable vote by the school board, extends the program to all students at Amador Valley and Foothill high schools.

Students at the three Pleasanton middle schools will have the same student ID option at the library starting in the 2019-20 school year. The plan is to add all elementary school students at a later date.

Opposition to the program concerned making private information on student ID cards available to a city government facility.

The Pacific Library Partnership, a consortium of Northern California libraries, started the program in 2016 to enable the sharing of student contact information between public libraries and public schools in order to allow student ID cards to function as library cards. The goal was to provide additional resources to students through access to both school and public library materials with a single card.

Eleven libraries were part of the Pacific Library Partnership’s pilot program and all have launched some form of data sharing in the last two school years.

Besides the ease of needing only one card, students will have the added benefit of having to pay no fines on late returns at the library, although they will be charged for losing or damaging materials they check out.

In other actions, the council also adopted several resolutions in connection with the Nov. 6 municipal election. On the ballot will be the election of a mayor for a two-year term and two council members for four-year terms.

Pleasanton holds municipal elections every two years in conjunction with county, state and national elections. By agreement with the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, the city asks the county Registrar of Voters to render specific services related to the conduct of the election.

Pleasanton candidates pay a $25 filing fee and a $600 deposit for the optional candidate’s statement printed in the sample ballot, now referred to as the voter information guide. The estimated costs associated with printing and translating the statement is $1,200.

The nomination period opens July 16 and closes Aug. 10. Because Councilman Arne Olson has chosen not to seek re-election, the nomination period for the position will extend to Aug. 15.

The City Council also adopted a resolution accepting a list of general priority areas for future acquisition of space needed by the Altamont landfill, where Pleasanton’s non-recyclable trash if dumped.

An open space committee of the landfill operation has selected six available sites in the eastern area of the Tri-Valley and three sites in the western area for expanding landfills as current operations reach capacity.

In the east, they are Dolan Canyon area, Springtown Alkali Sing, Tesla/Corral Hollow, Cedar Mountain, Brushy Peak and Altamont Pass wildlife corridors.

In the west, they are Pleasanton Ridge, Arroyo Mocho and Dublin Hills.

The committee has hired a team of representatives from UC Berkeley at a cost of $23,650 to further refine the list of priority areas.

The Open Space committee consists of one member appointed by the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, one member each appointed by the Pleasanton and Livermore city councils and one member appointed by the Sierra Club.

Editor’s note: Jeb Bing is editor emeritus for the Pleasanton Weekly. His “Around Pleasanton” columns run on the second and fourth Fridays of every month.

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