As early as next month, San Diegans could see all 37 locations closed Sundays and Mondays losing access to a range of resources. NBC 7’s Jeanette Quezada reports.
This week Mayor Todd Gloria set to present the revised budget draft for the 2026 fiscal year to the city council.
Libraries are among the services at risk of feeling the pinch from those budget reductions.
Stream San Diego News for free, 24/7, wherever you are with NBC 7.
WATCH HERENaomi Pyle lives just down the street from Serra Mesa and Kearny Mesa Public Library.
She brings her kids here on Sundays to read, play, and learn, but soon that option may not be available.
Get top local San Diego stories delivered to you every morning with our News Headlines newsletter.
SIGN UP “It’s not a great idea, especially with summer coming up,” Pyle said.
“Yeah…that’s going to be really sad,” her 9-year-old daughter, Jessica Pyle said.
Last week, Mayor Todd Gloria released his final draft budget for the 2026 fiscal year.
Local
His proposal protects programs focused on literacy, workforce development, early learning, business centers and accessibility, but it also plans to shut down all 37 city owned libraries on Sundays and Mondays.
Cutting back on hours could save the city about $8 million dollars, according to the Mayor, but library visitors like Raul Cabral said they are not excited about the idea.
“I would have to go to a coffee shop and it’s going to be more expensive or maybe to San Diego State,” Cabral said.
He’s not alone.
In a statement, the CEO of the San Diego Library Foundation said in part, “While this is a difficult budget year for the city, the San Diego Public Library is already experiencing the loss of federal and state funding for critical library programming, and we hoped to see the city support its libraries rather than cut their hours.”
“I just want to know why if there’s other places we can take money from that would be better suited. This one impacts the community and it’s not a good choice to take resources from the community,” Pyle said.
Kaitlyn Tolentino and her classmates met at the public library today to study for their nursing program.
She said city libraries provide something that is sometimes hard to come around – accessibility.
“Please let us use the library at these allotted times, it’s definitely necessary for us to be able to learn and you know, strive for our career paths, if not, then it’s definitely going to be a little tough for us,” Tolentino said.
Council member Sean Elo-Rivera said the Mayor’s proposed cuts have him disappointed more actions were not taken to protect resources for San Diegans.
“We had students come to city council and say this is safety to me and so to not address that at all, not a single dollar was adjusted to account for these disparities, that is extremely frustrating.”
NBC 7 reached out to the Mayor’s office for comment and is awaiting a response.
