Library Tax Campaign Launched : City services: Ed Szynaka will lead the effort to raise $8 million to restore the system he has led for 13 years--and then he’ll resign.

Library Director Ed Szynaka will lead a campaign to win voter support for an $8-million tax infusion into the beleaguered library system, then he’ll resign, he announced last week.

Szynaka, who has headed the city’s widely lauded library system for 13 years, said on Wednesday that he will leave his $87,000-a-year post in July. “It’s time for me to leave,” he said, when pressed about his reasons. He denied that the library budget was a factor in his decision to leave.

“It’s a personal decision,” he said, intimating that he may be considering a career change. “I’m still working on it.”

But as the city’s financial crisis has deepened over the past three years, revenue and services have eroded in the library system, which has a Central Library, eight branches and more than 600,000 books.

“It’s something like liposuction,” said Szynaka, 43, a dispirited figure at recent City Council budget sessions. “Little pieces of things have vanished.”

Among the losses: all service on Mondays at the Central Library, an extra day a week at branch libraries, 60% of the new book budget, popular programs such as author lectures and film series and 12 staff jobs. Branch libraries are now open four days a week. The Central Library is closed on weekday mornings.

In a rare display of devotion to library’s patrons, most of the librarians and clerical workers decided last spring to forgo scheduled pay raises of 3.5% and 4%, saving about $100,000 for the library budget.

But the prospects are for even more losses in the next few years, Szynaka said. The state is likely to take a larger share of revenues earmarked for the cities next year, city officials have warned.

At the same time, the libraries must compete for general fund money with the police and fire departments, as well as other city agencies.

The City Council, after hearing pleas last week from Police Chief Jerry Oliver and Fire Chief Kaya Pekerol for a total of almost $9 million for new firefighters and police officers, declared public safety to be the city’s “No. 1 priority.”

“Economic health and urban environment” placed second on the council’s list of priorities. “Cultural development” was third, along with several other broad concerns.

Next year, the libraries face the loss of more hours of service, including Sunday hours at the Central Library and the elimination of the entire new book budget, Szynaka said.

“We’re already down to buying just 10 new books per month in each branch,” Szynaka said.

The only alternative to irreparably weakening the library system, Szynaka said, is to enact a tax measure that would “stabilize and continually support this vital institution.”

Szynaka and the Library Commission, which advises the City Council on library issues, are in the process of putting together a task force to draw up a plan to raise about $8 million a year, either as a utility tax or a special tax, with earmarked funds similar to the taxes some cities impose for paramedic service.

Szynaka said he will devote most of his energies between now and his departure to that effort.

The plan is to ask the City Council to place a tax measure on the ballot in a special election in June, he said.

New library taxes would fund the entire library budget. Currently, 94% of the library system’s $6.5-million budget comes from general funds. A special tax measure would require approval by two-thirds of the voters.

Szynaka said he is optimistic about its chances. The Pasadena libraries are extremely well used, he said. About 4,000 people a day use the libraries, and more than 60% of the city’s 132,000 residents possess library cards.

“We circulate enough books in a year to put 12 books on every seat in the Rose Bowl,” Szynaka said.

With such widespread impact, he said, the library is likely to get a sympathetic reading from the voters.

City Manager Philip Hawkey expressed distress at receiving Szynaka’s resignation.

Szynaka is “one of the nation’s outstanding librarians” and he “has made Pasadena’s library system a model for other cities nationwide,” Hawkey said.

“If I could change his mind by getting down on my knees and saying, ‘Please stay,’ I would,” Hawkey said. “But he’s convinced me that that wouldn’t work.”

Pasadena’s libraries are experiencing the same kinds of budgetary pressures as libraries all across the country, Hawkey said.

Unlike cutbacks in police or fire services, he said, the loss of library hours and programs occur with little notice.

“It’s not until the library is closed that people understand the loss,” Hawkey said.