Today’s Opinionist comes to DCist from local art blogger Kriston Capps.

For all this time, D.C. Mayor Williams has billed himself as a supporter of big boxes in the District. During yesterday’s town hall meeting to discuss the fate of the city’s public library system, the Mayor revealed himself to be no friend to our most notorious big box—the Mies Van der Rohe-designed Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library. And he made no new friends among those who have legitimate doubts about the Williams administration’s plans to secure himself a lickety-split library legacy, a plan that fails to consider every option or the best value. Consider me among those doubters: the Mayor’s plan is rushed and opportunistic. Mayor Williams should reconsider—and he should dedicate his administration to renovating the Mies.

The first fault in the Mayor’s presentation, hosted yesterday by Council-member Kathy Patterson at the MLK Library, was a classic bait-and-switch. The centerpiece of his $450 million plan to restore the District’s library system is a new, $180-million flagship facility, to be located on the site of the old convention center. During the discussion, Mayor Williams and Library Board of Trustees President John Hill showed photographs from 21st century libraries across the country. He and his boosters spoke about the central libraries in Salt Lake City, Phoenix, and—of course—the Rem Koolhaas-designed library in Seattle.

But none of these stand-alone libraries remotely resembles the building Williams has in mind for the District. The new library would be a mixed-use facility, complete with commercial outlets, offices, or condominiums. To borrow an analogy from another of the Mayor’s development projects, it’s a bit like promising the city a Camden Yards but delivering an RFK, sandwiched row-style between a Hecht’s and a Linens ’n Things.