Funds OKd to Double Moorpark Library Size

Despite Ventura County’s continuing budget crisis, the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously approved spending $260,000 in emergency funds to more than double the size of the Moorpark library.

Along with $65,000 from the city, the county money will be used to add seven portable units to the library, which officials say is the most inadequate such facility in the county.

The board’s action leaves only $41,000 in the reserve fund for county libraries, which is used for emergency repairs.

County Chief Administrative Officer Richard Wittenberg said the board’s decision was unusual in light of the fiscal crisis that has led to cuts of 10% to 12% in every department over the past few years.

“It was a tremendous leap of faith for the county to use virtually all of the library’s contingency fund for this need,” he said.

Wittenberg credited the board’s unanimous vote to an intense lobbying effort by Supervisor Vicky Howard, whose district includes Moorpark.

Howard said the board was justified in using emergency funds for the expansion because “this is really an urgent situation with the Moorpark library. We have a lot of young people there that desperately need library services.”

With 5,000 square feet of space and 32,000 volumes, the Moorpark library is considered adequate for a town of about 7,000 people, in contrast with the city’s current population of 26,000, said Alan Langville of the county’s library-services agency.

But most Moorpark residents did not complain about their library until neighboring Thousand Oaks instituted a $55 library card fee last fall for people who live outside Thousand Oaks.

Until then, more than 8,000 Moorpark residents had been checking out books at the Thousand Oaks Library, which is 12 times the size of the Moorpark facility.

Since Thousand Oaks established the library card fee, there has been a 40% increase in the number of books checked out each month at the Moorpark Library, librarian Mary Crockford said.

But Crockford said the library is too small for the residents who now flock there, particularly during the crowded evening hours.

“We have had times when children sat on the floor,” Crockford said, adding that the library has only enough tables to seat 28 people.

The funding approved by the board Tuesday will go toward adding seven portable units to the facility, increasing its space by 60% to 8,050 square feet.

Also, the Board of Supervisors is expected to vote in August on a request to spend $150,000 to purchase 7,500 new volumes for the library, Langville said.

Howard said the county hopes to eventually get $3 million in state money to build a new Moorpark library, perhaps from a $150-million bond issue for library services that is expected to be on the November ballot.

But even if voters approve the bond issue and the state awards funds for the project, completion of a new Moorpark library would be at least five years away, Howard said.