Wellington City Council Wellington City councillors unanimously voted to fix and upgrade the city's quake-prone central library, despite public support for a new building. OPINION: It is often said the true measure of any society can be judged by how it treats its most vulnerable. I’d say the value a society places on knowledge, learning and the creation and dissemination of ideas can by judged by how it treats its public libraries. In Wellington, questions around the future of the earthquake-prone and mothballed central library have been raised since the building was closed in March 2019. Ross Giblin/Stuff Wellington Mayor Andy Foster surprised councillors and the people of Wellington by proposing the privatisation of part of the central library building and cutting the libraries’ resources budget by 40 per cent.