Are you as unhappy about your library closing as the gentleman at the beginning of that video?  Are you an Eagles fan?  Well, now you have a reason to put pressure on your hometown football team to pay up. It could just keep your library open for a year.

A number of folks in the town hall meetings and the comments to this and other blogs have made reference to an agreement by the Eagles to pay up for money the city spent to build luxury boxes at Veterans Stadium, an agreement, we all know by now, that the Eagles did not live up to.

So, the argument goes, if the Eagles would pay the $8 million they owe, that would fit nicely with the $8 million that the city is saving this fiscal year by closing 11 library branches.  Blinq’s Dan Rubin has more on this long saga between the Eagles and the City, including the video above which has been spreading through the local blogosphere pretty quickly and which explicitly makes the Eagles-library connection.

In his post, Rubin reinforces the suggestions that the Eagle’s $8 million payment, which is currently tied  up in the courts, could be used to fill the $8 million chunk of the gap which these 11 libraries represent for this fiscal year.  Unfortunately, even if the Eagles pay up this year, they won’t be giving up another $8 million out of the kindness of their hearts next year… leaving us right back here.

(While the economic situation could pick up before next year, the city is legally bound by the 5-year plan to make cuts this year based on conservative assumptions of economic growth and not wishful thinking on revenue suddenly increasing.)