What the hell? I had to pay fines when I was 6, (a whole dime a day!) and Denver is 10 times the family-friendly place that Seattle is.

I see no reason to burden them with realistic notions about fiscal consequences for not paying attention to the (not at all) fine print. That would just be silly.

At least the kids won't have to pay the $5 to $10 tolls for the Billionaires' Tunnel or entrance fees for the unwanted Chihulhy Glass Museum.

I kind of think they'd prefer to see Tiger breeding, though.

Matt, we've always charged too - I used to pay my dimes as a wee lad at the Susan B. Henry branch off Broadway. What Carlyle seems to be twitting McGinn for (and how dare he - only Dom is allowed to question the mayor, and only ever so gently) is the budget's new idea to send kids' delinquent accounts to collection agencies.

Because if there's one thing kids need less of these days, it's boundaries.

Papa Vel-DuRay was the president of the library board in Council Bluffs, Iowa when I was growing up. You better believe that fines applied to everyone, and that we caught hell if we kept a book past the due date.

Not making kids pay fines for overdue books? I never heard of such foolishness.

Making kids pay fines if they use the library system: OK.

Sending kids to collections agencies: BOO.

What is the point of fees if you don't collect them? Except maybe to teach kids that the rules don't apply to them.

hmm. Looks like @7 for the win.

that said, kids lose books all the time and you find them much much later in bizarre places.

I love me some SPL.

You're right, though, McKnucklehead... two things we as a city should do:

1. encourage people to drive to Northgate and Bellevue to shop
2. encourage poor people to stop borrowing books from the library.

The kids won't be sent to collections agencies, guys. If it's at all like the public library that I work at down in CA, a parent or guardian is linked to the child's account and assumes ultimate responsibility for damaged or lost items. It is the parent/guardian listed on the child's account that would be sent to collections.

@11 so you'd send the parents to collection, instead of shutting down that glass monstrosity downtown?

I mean, we'll all be broke from paying the extra $10,000 per household for the Billionaires' Tunnel, so how are we going to be able to afford the library fines?

Well?

@10: I love this narrative you're writing, it's fabulous. Seattle is just barely better than Bellevue -- cruise terminal more popular than any of its peers, ferry terminal, direct Link to an international airport, major architecture, culture and so on notwithstanding -- that any perturbation like collecting library fines and raising parking rates on an underutilized system in a city with an above average transit mode share, ANY, will destroy the city.

I mean, $4 parking or $8 toll (coming 2011!)? Checking out a library book and returning it on time or paying market rate for a book?

We're teetering on the brink!

@11 Again.

If the child continues using the library system after accruing fines or lost book fees: Collect.

If the child does not: Count As Loss.

Isn't Tim Burgess in on this nonsense with Reuven Carlyle? Finally you guys have a valid reason to attack Burgess and Carlyle instead of hyperventilating because of your ideological grudge.

For the record, I think parents who want to teach their kids there are no consequences for keeping books overdue can pay their kids' fines for them, protecting them from, uh, elbows of harsh reality. Burgess and Carlyle should be happy with that, right? Parents who think otherwise can make their kids pay their own fines. Everybody happy, no?

That's freedom! Which is messy, I'm told. But freedom nonetheless.

I have a solution to all our problems.

First, we use the fines collected from kids to pay for a tiger breeding ground at Seattle Center.

Then the GMO-salmon-enhanced tigers are set loose in the $10,000 per household cost overrun Billionaires Tunnel, after we throw in our unneeded yellow pages to chase the tigers further in.

Then we let loose Chihulhy inside, to give him a 10 minute start to run to the Boeing Field end from the Gates Foundation and EMP/SFM.

And then, five minutes later, we drop our Mayor, who is of course very fit from all the biking, as all we bears are, in along with Reichsfuhrer Conlin.

Five minutes after that, we let the mutated tigers, twice the size of normal tigers and with electric eel shock capability, loose.

First one to the other end gets to live.

Carlyle, you must be onto something, to have earned a cherrypicking from Dominic. People don't misdirect attention away from an argument that doesn't worry them.

I was pretty certain WIS would find some way to associate this with the "billionaire's tunnel" and the Chihuly museum. It seems no stretch is too great.

Do you know any other songs, Will? This one is getting old.

@20 just give us a public vote on the Billionaires Tunnel and we'll be quiet.

Of course, that will kill it, and we'll win, but hey, that's what Democracy is for, right?

You can carry the GMO-salmon to feed the tigers.

Does this mean I have to stop taking out books on my daughter's card? Dammit.

@17: No, that's not freedom. Freedom is when people pay for books rather than getting them free from the state.

There's a happy medium here: once you exceed a certain amount in fines ( say $3 for kids, $5 for adults) you can't check anything out until you pay up. That's. A low threshold , especially for a completely avoidable fine.

@24 The SPL currently doesn't do that for kids?

@24 um, that's not much. Kids frequently like to check out as many books as they can.

Look, I'm 100% in favor of sending kids to collections if it means I can start elbowing them in the face.