County Acted in Bad Faith

Los Angeles County officials misrepresented the effect of legislation allowing Westlake Village to withdraw from the county library system (“Bill Would Let City Pull Funds from County Libraries,” Times Valley Edition, Aug. 18).

The legislation will neither reduce funding to any other branch library nor cost the county one penny. The county has admitted (although in the article, its spokesperson failed to mention) that it is prepared to invest $350,000 in a small temporary branch in Westlake Village. That $350,000 is precisely the same amount Westlake Village would retain in property tax revenue by withdrawing from the county library system and keeping its property tax contributions. The county thus would lose nothing.

There will be no negative impact on any other branch library because none of Westlake Village’s contribution would go anywhere except Westlake Village anyway.

The county implies that a raft of cities will line up to follow Westlake Village’s lead and leave the county library with insufficient revenue. That hysterical prediction is unfounded. First, many other cities in the county already provide their own library services. Second, in the nine months that this bill moved through the Legislature, no other city in the county ever sought to be included.

Such county doublespeak convinced the Assembly to side with Westlake Village and pass the legislation by a unanimous vote, 68-0. Los Angeles County acted in bad faith while Westlake Village sought nothing more than what the county committed to.

TERRY B. FRIEDMAN

Friedman wrote as the assemblyman representing the 43rd District.