Ventura Seeks 4-Month Reprieve for Library

A group of school officials, community activists and civic leaders will try to win a four-month reprieve for the Ventura Avenue Library, which may be closed by the Ventura County Board of Supervisors next week, Ventura City Councilman Gary Tuttle said Friday.

The group plans to lobby the board to keep operating the library, which supervisors say is too expensive, so they can look for alternative sites and other sources of funding, Tuttle said.

“It will buy some time,” Tuttle said. “It’s premature to close it down because it appears the community feels it is a valuable resource.”

Schoolchildren, teachers, parents and residents have been fighting the possible closure since it was announced last month. They have written dozens of letters to the supervisors and local newspapers, citing the need for a library in the low-income neighborhood. Last year, operations at the library--one of three in Ventura--were reduced from five days a week to two.

“I think a library is essential to every community,” said Trudy Arriaga, principal at Sheridan Way School, which is a few blocks away from the library. “It’s one of the few resources our children have that is free to them. We’re not going to just sit back and watch this happen.”

There has been talk of moving the library from 807 N. Ventura Ave. to a building on the campus oP. Foster School, but no commitments have been made, Tuttle said.

“It’s just talk right now,” he said. But “everyone is stepping forward to help” with the push for a delay, he said.

The Ventura Unified School District, the Downtown Ventura Lions Club, the Boys & Girls Club of Ventura and Ventura City Council members have been working with residents and Supervisor Susan K. Lacey to find an alternative to shutting the library, Tuttle said.

“Once it’s closed, it’s extremely difficult to get it open again. You lose the momentum,” Tuttle said.

The biggest obstacle is that “none of us have any money,” said Arlene Miro, director of administrative services at the school district. “The bottom line is, where does the money come to do it?”

It costs about $4,000 a month to keep the library open, said Dixie D. Adeniran, library services director for the county. The library’s rent is higher than any other small library in the county because the real estate market was high when the lease was negotiated, she said.

Steve Offerman, an assistant to Lacey, said the supervisor likes “the idea of keeping it open for an interim period.”

He warned, however, that it is not likely that it would be long. Four months may be too lengthy because the supervisors will be facing other budget decisions soon, he said.

“While there is some room to continue negotiating,” Offerman said, “the idea would be to find a new home for the library as soon as possible.”

The library is one of 16 operated by the county, which budgeted $10 million for them last year and projects a budget of $8.4 million this year. The cities of Oxnard, Santa Paula and Thousand Oaks operate their own libraries.