$4.5-Million Bond Issue for Library Set for Vote

Santa Monica voters will decide in November whether they want the city to issue $4.5 million in bonds to purchase land to expand the main library downtown.

Library proponents say the popular main branch, the largest public library on the Westside, is too small to serve the community and needs to be expanded by almost 50% by the year 2000.

On Tuesday, the City Council voted, 5 to 0, to include a bond proposition on the Nov. 8 ballot to buy property behind the library, at Santa Monica Boulevard at 6th Street, for future expansion.

“There isn’t going to be an expansion for at least 10 years, but (we need to) acquire the property so that we can expand,” said H. Richard Horst, chairman of Yes on the Library, a committee that supports the bond issue. “If we don’t acquire the property, some developer is going to put up a 4-story office building.”

More Parking Space

While it decides how it will raise money for the expansion, the city will probably raze the commercial building and two ramshackle houses on the land to make room for more parking, another library need, Horst said.

Bond proponents base their arguments in favor of the expansion on a 1986 study by library space planner Robert H. Rohlf. In his report, Rohlf concluded that the city should expand the library from its present 60,000 square feet of usable space to 87,000 square feet to properly serve the community through the year 2000.

The library’s most pressing needs are an enlarged audio-visual department, including space for microcomputers and videocassette players; a separate study room for children, and increased shelf space, said city librarian Carol A. Aranoff.

As it is, shelf space is encroaching into places library patrons use for studying, sitting or reading, Aranoff said.

‘Less Pleasant Place’

“What we’ve given up by accommodating more shelving is that we’ve made this a less pleasant place to be in,” she said.

Aranoff said that if and when the library is expanded, it will benefit a larger area than Santa Monica.

“We’re a regional facility,” she said. “We’re certainly popular with Santa Monica residents, but we get a lot of usage from other nearby areas: West Los Angeles, Venice and parts of L.A. County, like Malibu and Marina del Rey.”

Aranoff said state financing helps pay for use by patrons from outside Santa Monica.

But library use is down somewhat since the library was closed for 19 months starting in August, 1986, to remove asbestos from its ceilings and for renovation, she said.

Since reopening in March, the library’s circulation of books and audio-visual materials have been steadily increasing, although the figures for July--51,129 checkouts--are 18% lower than they were in July, 1986, when library patrons made a total of 62,477 checkouts, Aranoff said.

City Manager John Jalili said that although a $4.5-million price tag for buying land for the expansion may be high in a time of tight municipal budgets, “the library is one of the services that, over and over, the residents have valued as one of the most essential . . . in the city.”

The bond debt will “be a lot of money, but it is also an opportunity,” he said. “If it is not taken advantage of right now, it may be that we forever foreclose on our opportunity to expand the library.”

Horst said he has not heard of any opposition to the bond proposition. “I’ve talked to people who usually oppose city expenditures, and they say they will support the library,” he said.

Horst said the clothing store, copy center and old rented houses on the property probably would not be missed if their buildings are destroyed. “I think the only thing that will be missed is the English pub,” he said.

Victor Wichman owner of the King George V English pub at 623 Santa Monica Blvd., located across an alley from the library, said he is unhappy about the proposed expansion.

If the building that houses the pub is demolished, “I would be very upset. Especially since (the process) has gone so far without anyone telling us about it,” said Wichman, who recently returned from a trip to Norway and learned of the bond proposition Wednesday.

Wichman, who said he has owned the bar since 1980 and has 8 1/2 years remaining on his lease, was not optimistic about finding a new downtown location with a comparable lease. “It would be impossible,” he said.

The pub, he said, is his only source of income. “It’s very profitable,” he said. “It’s not a big-time place, but it’s a good money-maker for us.”

The bond proposition will need a two-thirds majority from voters to pass.