Lonely days: Cutbacks have forced Brawley’s Marjo Mello to run two city departments this year with little or no staff

Marjo Mello had to swallow a very bitter pill when the Brawley City Council finalized this year’s fiscal year budget, which was heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In order to finish with a balanced budget, the council chose to fund only services deemed “essential” — a list the Brawley Public Library did not make.

This made Mello’s 28th year as the library’s director a lonely one, as all her staff was laid off until the end of the fiscal year.

From March until August, Mello was the only soul in the 8,000-square-foot building that serves as the library’s Main Street branch. She even worked from home for a couple of months.

A second hat Mello wears for the city was also blown off, as the Parks and Recreation Department was also deemed non-essential.

Mello has been that department’s interim director for more than two years.

Financial consideration have delayed the city in hiring a permanent director with a specialty in parks and recreation.

“Before I started with them, my parks and rec knowledge was driving by the park,” Mello said.

Making Brawley home

Growing up, Mello was an avid swimmer — an interest she picked up from her dad, who was in the military.

“So I was very fortunate to get to move a lot,” Mello said.

Her dad eventually retired, and the family settled down in Lakeside in San Diego County.

During her senior high school there, Mello took a job as a gas station attendant, a job she kept through her first year at Grossmont College in El Cajon.

“Back then in 1971, there weren’t female gas station attendants,” Mello said. “And gas was 25 cents a gallon.”

One of her customers at the gas station was future husband, Micheal, who also happened to be a fellow student at Grossmont. The two began to date, and eventually that led to a wedding.

The young couple moved around a bit after that while Micheal served in the military, but in 1979, they wound up in Brawley to become live-in group home parents for Charlee Family Care. Marjo Mello was 26 at the time.

The couple spent a year and a half raising six teenagers in a home on South Imperial Avenue in Brawley. Micheal then returned to the military, serving in Germany, among other places.

After Micheal completed his second stint in the military in 1982, the Mellos returned to Brawley.

“This is where we need to be with what we do, what we like to do and the different jobs we’ve had,” Marjo said.

While Marjo Mello decided to pursue becoming a library director, Micheal had a variety of jobs, such as an Imperial Irrigation District employee, a Naval Air Facility El Centro firefighter and a Centinela Prison library technician.

He passed away in May 2019 from a protracted illness.

“He actually prepared me for it for many years,” Marjo said. “I miss him every day, of course — all the time.”

Quiet time

“Isolation is very hard,” Mello, who now lives in Niland, observed.

She’s not completely alone. She shares her home with two adopted cats. They’re agreeable housemates, because, like their foster parent, they enjoy both alone time and people time.

“I’m OK with that (being alone) for half a day, but the other half I need people around,” she said.

Mello has been using her recent free time wisely, working on grants and the library’s reopening plan.

A lot has changed at the Brawley Public Library since Mello joined the library staff in 1987 and became director in 1992.

“I am very proud of a lot of the accomplishments that have been done since I’ve been here,” she said.

In 1993, Mello led a remodeling effort that gave the Main Street branch a new entrance, new public restrooms and an extension to shelve even more categories of books.

In 2001, she helped establish the region’s first mobile pre-literacy program, the Literacy and Mobile Books Services (LAMBS).

LAMBS is a mobile library for preschool children throughout Imperial County, extending to Winterhaven residents and the Quechan reservation.

In 2008, Mello helped create the Del Rio branch of the Brawley Public Library, which is located on the east side of town.

The branch extension was done through a joint-use partnership with the Imperial County Office of Education.

“We set aside our developer impact fees for 15 years or so to pay for the portion of the library,” Mello said of the Del Rio branch. “I think it’s beautiful because I got to design it, but the interior is really nice.”

In 2010, the library’s Main Street branch had new flooring installed, as well as new half walls.

Mello’s years of experience as library director have proven to be helpful in running the Parks and Recreation Department.

“It’s a lot more complicated than checking books in and out,” she said of her second gig.

Mello explained that she applies administrative and budgeting skills she’s acquired as library director while working with parks and recreation matters.

She said she felt “pure disappointment” when she learned the library and its services would be unfunded for budget reasons until Jan. 1, 2021.

“Because I know the value that the community places on the library,” she said. “And I know the use, and I know the variety of people who use it.”

The library has books for all ages in both English and Spanish.

Some services at the Main Street branch were restored in September, when the Brawley City Council agreed to let Mello bring back one employee for 10 hours per week to assist with a curbside pickup service for books.

A LAMBS staff member was also brought back, and will be offering the literacy services in a form adapted for the pandemic.

“Having someone here to help with the curbside made a big difference in uplifting to feel like we’re actually doing something for the community again,” Mello said. “Because this is a people place, I have absolutely missed our patrons, our customers.”