OAK PARK : Residents Oppose Shared Library Plan

Oak Park residents have protested a proposal by Ventura County Supervisor Maria VanderKolk for the community to join with neighboring Agoura Hills in building a large regional library.

About 30 residents and Oak Park Unified School District officials attended a meeting this week called by VanderKolk and county library officials to discuss ways to improve local library services.

Only two residents spoke in favor of a proposal by VanderKolk for the community to contribute $800,000 to $1 million toward building a regional library in Agoura Hills, just across the county line from Oak Park.

They pointed out that the Agoura Hills library will have three times as many books as any facility that Oak Park could afford on its own.

But most of the residents and all of the school officials who spoke at the meeting said they want to keep their library in the community by either expanding the present facility that is shared with Oak Park High School or constructing a larger building nearby.

Residents said it would be too dangerous for children to ride their bicycles along Kanan Road and the Ventura Freeway overpass to the planned site for the Agoura Hills Library.

School officials said they want to keep the library in Oak Park so the school district can continue to operate the facility jointly with the county’s library services agency.

The school district has proposed building a new library on the far east end of the high school campus along Kanan Road.

The proposed site is large enough for a building of 5,000 to 9,000 square feet, which could hold about 45,000 volumes, said Dixie D. Adeniran, director of the library services agency.

The current Oak Park Library has about 5,000 square feet and 20,000 volumes. The planned Agoura Hills library would have 25,000 to 30,000 square feet and 170,000 volumes.

VanderKolk said at the end of the meeting that she would appoint a committee to explore ways to improve the community’s library services.