St. Pete, Pinellas Park form Library Partnership

Recently, when the city of Pinellas Park lost its Library Director, library officials in Pinellas Park and St. Petersburg saw a mutually beneficial opportunity to work together. Beginning Dec. 3 St. Petersburg will assist Pinellas Park by providing a member of its library services team to act as the Director for Pinellas Park's Library. This arrangement fills a short-term gap in administrative services for Pinellas Park, while also benefitting St. Petersburg by providing additional revenue to support its library system.

The current issues of decreasing revenue and budget reduction are dictating that local governments and agencies throughout the Tampa Bay area seek new partnerships and business models to streamline their operations and increase their efficiency.

"This temporary arrangement provides a springboard to explore the potential for longer term collaborations in a variety of scenarios", said Mayor Bill Foster in a news release. "Partnerships are essential to the sustainability of local governments."

Pinellas Park Mayor Sandra Bradbury added: "this is an area where we have long discussed the potential for partnerships. This was the perfect opportunity to bring that discussion into action."