Measure Would Build, Fix Libraries

Crafted to provide some relief for California’s aging public libraries, Proposition 81 would authorize the state to borrow $600 million to help local jurisdictions build and renovate libraries statewide.

The bond measure, the only one on the ballot this June, has the broad backing of teachers, businesses, organized labor and the state’s major newspapers.

The main opposition comes from taxpayer groups, including the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., which argues that borrowing is an uneconomical way to fund new library construction. A $600-million bond will end up costing twice that, once interest is included.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who signed a 2004 bill that put the measure on the ballot, has not taken a position.

With relatively little campaign money at their disposal, Proposition 81’s champions are relying on allies to help get the word out about the need for massive upgrades to public libraries statewide.

Voters previously passed bond measures to support public libraries in 1988 and 2000. But the needs, like those of other civic institutions that have suffered from years of underinvestment, remain staggeringly high.

A 2003 study by the California State Library put the cost of upgrading library facilities statewide at $4.4 billion.

And though some cities, including Los Angeles and San Jose, have passed their own bond measures to pay for library upgrades, systems that have not done so, like Los Angeles County, are operating facilities that haven’t been substantially modernized in decades.