As yesterday’s county commission meeting got around to library budget cuts, every commissioner who spoke shed copious crocodile tears and spouted his or her own individual list of clichés. Other than Bill James’ suggestion to take money from CMS and give it to the library, no one showed an iota of creative thinking about a situation that is begging for originality and vision.

Commission Chair Jennifer Roberts said, "We know we have a stellar library system, and we're committed to maintaining that system," but later added, "It's going to look different." Well, which is it? Are you going to maintain that "stellar library system," or is it going to look different? Doing both is impossible, so please explain.

Roberts wasn’t the only doublespeaker, though — not by a long shot. Harold Cogdell went round and round and eventually gave birth to a sentence — God, I wish I had DVR’d the thing — that was a masterpiece of the art of stringing together clichés and buzzwords while communicating next to nothing. Dan Murrey, not to be outdone, played Mr. Tough Guy, saying he wanted to know how the library planned to keep from making deeper cuts (um, maybe by getting you guys to fulfill your public responsibilities, which include having an effective library system?). Murrey also suggested the library find ways to raise extra revenue. OK now, finally some creative thinking: let the library raise its own money! In the spirit of helping out anyway we can, here’s a great idea we’d love to see the library try right away: Set up snazzy Dunk-the-Commissioners booths outside library branches, and charge 10 bucks a pop. Budget problems should be solved within a month or so.

• Coming soon to a library branch near you?