$3 Million Means Volumes for Vista’s Public Library

When Jane Romita talks about her Vista library, she’s more the apologist than the booster.

“It’s woefully inadequate,” admits the library director. “It’s pathetic. It’s downright embarrassing.”

For a community of 75,000, the Vista branch of the San Diego County library, in the county courts complex on Melrose Drive, is the smallest in the county per capita, Romita says.

“When people on jury duty walk over to spend some time or look for a magazine, they ask, ‘Is this all you have? Is this it?’ ” Romita said. “Then they tell me about how nice a library they have where they live.”

The Vista branch library has only 5,800 square feet, which includes the 1,400-square-foot trailer that was added three weeks ago, the brainstorm of a city councilman’s wife who was wondering how the place could be expanded quickly.

Until the add-on, there were only enough tables and chairs for 20 people. To make room for new books, some of the existing 65,000 volumes had to be sent back to the county library’s warehouse in San Diego.

But all that will change, thanks to a $3-million grant the city of Vista has won from the state’s Library Construction and Renovation Board.

The Vista library is the second in San Diego County to receive some of the $75 million authorized by Proposition 85, approved by voters statewide in 1988 for library construction. Earlier this year, about half the money was awarded to libraries around California, and the only winner in San Diego County was Chula Vista, said said State Librarian Gary Strong.

Last week, the rest of the money was doled out, and, among 52 applicants seeking about $200 million, 14 won grants--including Vista, the only one to do so in San Diego County. The cities of San Diego--for its library in Rancho Bernardo--and Carlsbad also applied for grants, but were turned down.

“I don’t recall Vista ever before receiving an outright grant the size of this one to help the community,” said Vista City Councilman Bernie Rappaport, who helped lobby for the windfall.

By combining the state grant and local funds, Vista officials are now planning to design and construct a $4.5-million library building, either alongside the existing City Hall on Escondido Avenue, or at the site of a new civic center in downtown Vista, as some have proposed.

“When we got word that we won the money, I called the city manager and told him I wanted to see bulldozers moving dirt the next day,” Rappaport laughed.

Indeed, the city will have to solidify plans for the new library within a year or risk losing the money, Rappaport said.

Initial plans call for a one-story, 30,000-square-foot library, which will then be stocked by the county library system.

Romita, the local librarian, said she hopes the new facility will be stocked with 150,000 books, more than double the current inventory, when completed by 1993.

Like some of the books belonging to the existing library, the new facility, Romita said, is long overdue.