Branch Libraries Spared From Budget-Cutting Ax : Government: Board of Supervisors again blames state lawmakers for money woes.

Renewing their protests against state spending requirements, San DiegoCounty supervisors unanimously rejected a proposal on Tuesday to save $190,000 by closing seven branch libraries in outlying areas of the county.

Saying that they won’t sacrifice popular local services while they are forced to fund state-mandated programs, the supervisors refused to address a $500,000 gap in the library budget by shutting branches in Cardiff, Crest, Fletcher Hills, Jacumba, Lincoln Acres, Pine Valley and Potrero.

Instead, they used the opportunity to voice a familiar refrain: that the Legislature is the source of the county’s budget woes because it requires the county to spend tens of millions of dollars on health, mental health and social services without supplying the money to do it.

Criticizing Assembly Speaker “Willie Brown and his bandits,” Supervisor Brian Bilbray called the mandates “outrageous and ridiculous.” Supervisor Susan Golding labeled them “the height of hypocrisy.”

A library is “exactly the kind of public service we should fight to keep open at all costs, because it serves everyone,” Golding said. “I’m going to find half a million (dollars) to cut from something else, but I’m not going to close any libraries.”

The supervisorial saber rattling continued in a separate review of the county’s ever-escalating budget woes, with several board members warning that they may soon defy the state by refusing to fund such programs as General Relief welfare payments--even if the decision sparks a court battle.

Attempting to close a deficit now estimated at $32 million, supervisors directed administrators to determine the savings of such measures as ordering work furloughs for county employees, reducing the length of the employee work week, providing fewer attorneys at Family Court hearings and trimming or eliminating some welfare payments.

The supervisors may vote on the matter next month.

The library cuts would have eliminated branches with low circulation, replaced rural libraries with bookmobile service and consolidated branches situated near other libraries.

But Assistant County Administrative Officer David Janssen conceded that the plan was “dead on arrival,” after it attracted widespread opposition from library supporters and board members themselves.

Twenty-four people signed up to testify against the closures, but the supervisors quickly dispatched the idea without hearing from a single one.