As the final bell rings at Burien-area high schools and junior highs teenagers are unleashed in droves, many feeling the freedom of that gap between class ending and dinner time back home.

A lot of teens end up at Burien’s library, which, to an outsider, might seem like a dream come true (“Your kids voluntarily go to the library!?”). But for many Burienites and others using the library, the teens congregating at and around the library have become a problem.

Complaints of vandalism, drug use, swearing, intimidation, car prowls, pulling fire alarms, loud voices inside a traditionally very quiet place .... the list goes on, and some citizens say they have decided to just stop going during after-school hours.

The complaints reached a higher pitch recently when, on Jan. 26, a fight broke out inside the lobby. According to Burien Sgt. Henry McLaughlin a large crowd of teens approached another teen inside the lobby intent on fighting him.

“The next thing you know he decides to go on the offense,” McLaughlin said, recalling the bullied teen turning the tables and hitting one of his potential assailants. The teen ran away but police were called to the scene and apprehended him. No charges were filed as the one allegedly hit was long gone by that time.

“We do have a bit of a kid issue at the library and we are taking steps to deal with that … working with Highline High School, the library and with city hall,” the Sergeant said.

It is a situation where the King County Library System encourages teens to come to the library with after-school programs like Guitar Hero (a video game) competitions, but along with the activities unsavory behavior sometimes arises.

Bill Ptacek, director of King County Libraries
“We certainly want kids to come to the library … I think it is a good thing and I think the whole community wants kids to come to the library,” King County Library Services Director Bill Ptacek said. “Obviously we want them to behave at the library and I don’t know that that is necessarily happening.”

Ptacek said King County recently added additional librarians to the Burien workforce and stepped up their contact with the Burien Police Department in the wake of the Jan. 26 melee. He said library leadership is actively meeting and working on solutions to the problem, which he characterizes as “happening in waves,” with poor behavior rearing its head more often in September when the kids come back to school, and around the new year when kids are back from holiday break.

“We don’t want our librarians to intercede in fights or things like that and the police have been pretty good about responding,” he said. “If kids are going to be violent or they are going to be operating outside the bounds of the law or going to be destructive … we need law enforcement because that is not our job, it is not our expertise.”

“I don’t think it is the library,” he said, “if it wasn’t happening there I suspect it would be happening down the street … it is a community-wide issue and we have been working with the City of Burien, working with the police department and, internally, we have added additional resources to deal with it.”

“We are not finished, we are still looking for solutions,” he added. “We want to find a real solution to it and now just a way to move the problem.”

Ptacek encouraged citizens and community leaders to talk with the Burien library staff about specific issues they have witnessed, and promised that information would make it to the top.

Mike Martin, City of Burien manager
Burien City Hall shares the building with King County Libraries, so the teen problem certainly has mixed responsibility.

““We share (the community’s) concerns.,” Martin said. “We don’t think it is right that anybody, whether they are kids or anyone, should behave in any fashion that chills the use of the library or city hall.”

Regarding solutions, Martin said the city is working to secure funding for surveillance cameras – both outside the building and inside the lobby – that he hopes will be installed within 60 days. Last year cameras were installed in the parking garage and Martin said it was effective in reducing crime (such as car prowls and vandalism). Burien Police also cracked down on teens at the library during that time, but Martin said it was an expensive exercise – costing the city an additional $2,000 a week in overtime pay.

“Part of the problem here is that these kids are unsupervised and it is fair to mention the fact that the parents are not becoming involved in the way their kids are behaving after school,” he added.

What to do, where to go after school?
“The problem is kids are behaving badly and the problem is also that they do not have a lot of options in terms of places to go,” Martin said. “That is not an excuse, but it is a reality.”

There are after school teen programs at the community center, but Martin said the kids causing problems at the library are not likely to take part in that strictly supervised environment.

“We just haven’t captured the imagination of these kids,” Martin said. “We can’t let ‘kids be kids’ at the expense of people that are trying to use facilities that were paid for by taxpayers. It’s not a free license for vandalism and some of the behaviors we’ve seen.”

A teenager’s take
A teenager spending time in the park next to the library after school on Feb. 3 (who asked not to be identified) shared her opinion on the matter:

“All I’m saying is we are getting mixed messages,” she said. “The teen section librarians tell us we can hang out as long as we are 25 feet away from the building when smoking and that we are not blocking doors or emergency exits. She (the librarian) is saying that we are allowed to hang out and then the cop will pull up and tell us we are kicked off and we are just like, ‘What do we do, where do we spend our time?’”