merh's musings - How can Philadelphia be closing its libraries while spending 69.5 million on the libraries?

After reading this thread about the City of Philadelphia closing libraries in October, I did a quick google search to find out how much federal stimulus money was awarded to the State of Pennsylvania.

I found the Stimulus Watch website and discovered that of the $787 billion federal stimulus money appropriated by congress to the states, $4,448,759,130 was awarded to Pennsylvania. Of that money, $69.5 million was allocated to Philadelphia to build new libraries and to renovate and expand existing libraries or library services.

Library system expansion: Construction of two new regional libraries in north and south sections of the city Philadelphia PA 352 $30,000,000

Free Library: Renovation and expansion of regional branches Philadelphia PA 278 $25,000,000

Branch Library Improvements: Upgrade of Facilities including Structural and mechanical Systems Philadelphia PA 58 $5,000,000

Bookmobiles: Purchase and deployment of bookmobiles in underserved communities in the city. Philadelphia PA 14 $500,000

Exterior modernization of libraries: Windows and roof replacements at all libraries Philadelphia PA 0 $9,000,000

http://www.stimuluswatch.org/project/by_st...

It appears that the City of Philadelphia will be spending stimulus money to renovate buildings and facilities that won't be operating.

OR - the Philadelphia press is lazy and didn't look deeper into this matter.