The Library Department, she said, sees the city differently than the Planning Department.

Some light was shed last week on the question of communities and libraries, but much remains unclear.

The question arises from deliberations over the new Echo Park Branch Library, which seems destined to be placed outside of Echo Park. The Library Department has set aside about $5 million from the April library bond issue to build a replacement for temporary quarters that have housed the branch since 1972.

As predicted here, the Board of Library Commissioners’ hearing Thursday night on where to put the new building turned into a battle over turf.

One side implored the commissioners to put the library south of the Hollywood Freeway, close to the children of overcrowded schools near the central city. The other side--somewhat greater in number--demanded that it go north of the freeway, closer to the heart of the community.

Until last week, most of the northern group--many members of the Friends of the Echo Park Library--had their hearts set on the old Fire Station 6 in Angeleno Heights, a 1920s landmark now used by the Fire Department’s disaster preparedness program.

They had nursed that dream against all obstacles for several years until Councilwoman Gloria Molina finally extinguished it in a letter to the Library Commission a few days before the meeting.

As a candidate, Molina had endorsed the fire station as a library. But, in her letter, urging the commission to decide quickly, she pointed out that the idea seemed better then because there was no money to buy property. The Fire Department, she said, has reaffirmed that it will not give up the station.

By Thursday’s meeting, most of the firehouse faction had transferred loyalty to a corner on Sunset Boulevard at Lemoyne Street where, they believe, a landlord is vacating a building. They criticized the library staff for passing the property over in its survey of possible sites.

The department’s assistant director of branches, Fontayne Holmes, explained that the property would have required eminent domain, “one of the things we were trying to avoid because we know how the council office feels about it.”

“Which council office?” snapped Juanita Dellomes, one of those favoring the north. The site in question, she pointed out, is in the district of Councilman John Ferraro.

“Councilman Ferraro is not against eminent domain,” she said.

Others got rough with Molina.

“She does not own Echo Park,” said Jeb Brighouse of the Echo Park Renters and Homeowners Assn. “She does not own this library. It does not belong to her, nor is it her prerogative to decide where it should go.”

To illustrate their case, several speakers brought copies of the Silver Lake/Echo Park community plan. They pointed out that moving the library only a block south to the site recommended by staff--a vacant lot on the southwest corner of Temple and Douglas streets--would take it out of the community plan area, leaving no library there at all.

Holmes advised them they were invoking the wrong map. The Library Department, she said, sees the city differently than the Planning Department.

“We in the Library Department do not see Temple as a dividing line or a boundary of any kind,” she said.

Those on the other side of the question, though less hostile, were every bit as parochial.

“If you had something on that side of the freeway and we went to take it away, you wouldn’t be too pleased about it,” one man said quietly in Spanish.

Lawrence Gonzalez, principal of Betty Plasencia Elementary, said its 1,800 students would benefit from the library next door.

“It would make our daily struggle with boys and girls, with young minds, with our future, the future of this community, a little bit easier,” Gonzalez said.

When asked by Commissioner Sanford Paris if the northern site might equally benefit students of nearby Logan Elementary, he said, “I’m going to tell you that I have a very prejudiced attitude about Logan.” In light of such discord, the solution proposed by Molina’s deputy, Sylvia Novoa, seemed futile.

“What we need to hear from you is a consensus,” Novoa said. “This has become an issue of what Gloria wants or doesn’t want. That’s not the case. Gloria wants what you want.”

She advised the commission to investigate the new site proposed by the audience, but also admonished the audience:

“Do you want Site 9? Fine. We will look at Site 9. But next time we have this meeting, next time we ask the commission to come out here, don’t say, ‘Well, no, I looked at another one. I looked at Site 9, but I changed my mind.’ ”

One commissioner spoke of his wish for a Solomonic resolution--the building of one library on each side of the freeway. But, finding that option impossibly expensive, he went along with a decision that was quasi-Solomonic in its subtlety.

The commission voted unanimously to begin negotiations on the southern option, but also to inquire into the terms of the northern one as a possible backup.

Stay tuned.