Library System Braces for Closures : Budget: Burden falling hard on sites in Santa Clarita, Conejo and Antelope valleys.

Half a dozen mothers came in to let their children read. A Catholic priest picked up a video--because “there’s nothing good on TV.” And, in the corner, a bearded man in a black T-shirt pored over the “The Code of Civil Procedure Analysis.”

And that was just during the slow hour at Canyon Country Library, where an average of 500 people seek information each day, library manager Andrea Kish said.

But this week, those entering the small brick building at the corner of Soledad Canyon Road and Sierra Highway encountered a yellow and black sign on the door that had the emotional impact of an eviction.

“Notice of Potential Facility Closure,” it read. “Actions by the Governor and State Legislature may result in the closure of this facility.”

As county library officials struggle to nearly halve the 87-branch system to accommodate an anticipated shortfall of $23.5 million in the new county budget, the burden falls especially hard on the scattered libraries of the Santa Clarita, Conejo and Antelope valleys.

Under the current plan, each valley would lose all but a single library.

Among the 43 county libraries and library facilities targeted for closure in mid-August are seven in Canyon Country, Newhall, Calabasas, Westlake Village, Littlerock, Lake Los Angeles and Quartz Hill, plus the Calabasas bookmobile and the Santa Clarita and Antelope valley bookmobiles.

If approved by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors in final budget deliberations beginning next week, the closure plan would leave only the Valencia Library in the Santa Clarita Valley, Las Virgenes Library in the Conejo Valley and Lancaster Library in the Antelope Valley, said Evelyn MacMorres, regional administrator for the North Region.

Hours would also be reduced 50% at the branches that remain open, MacMorres said.

Though the reductions would leave residents in scattered towns such as Acton and Lake Los Angeles up to 40 miles from the nearest library, MacMorres said she considered the closure choices fair, considering the severity of the problem.

“We worked together,” MacMorres said of the decision. “When you’re closing 43 libraries, there’s really not very much left for us to do, but to decide to cover each area with a medium-sized library. We have done the best we can.”

In Westlake Village officials are scrambling to put together a plan to save their local library from closure just months after it opened its doors.

City Councilwoman Bonnie Klove said the council discussed the proposed closure Wednesday and plans to meet with county officials next week to offer an alternative plan: keeping the library open using unpaid volunteers supervised by just one paid staff worker from the county library system.

The library opened in March with the help of about $300,000 in city money, she said.

Some council members thought the county was backing out of what was supposed to be a joint venture, Klove said.

“The council expressed the strong position that this library should remain open, given all the time and resources we’ve put in,” said City Manager Ray Taylor.

However, MacMorres said she doubted the Westlake Village proposal would work because at least one trained librarian is needed per library to use the computer system.

“It is true that the city has helped us to open the library and the city is paying the lease,” MacMorres said. “We understand that. But when your budget’s been cut from $62 million to $30 million and you can’t even make payroll . . .,” she said, leaving the sentence unfinished.

Library officials still hope relief will come from Sacramento, where the library’s problems originated when the state diverted money from local governments to schools in the state’s 1992-1993 budget.

A bill approved by the state Senate and passed Wednesday by an Assembly committee would authorize local agencies such as the Board of Supervisors to establish fixed-fee property tax assessments to finance libraries so long as no more than 10% of property owners protest. Currently, the Proposition 13 tax limitation initiative adopted by the voters in 1978 requires a two-thirds vote in an election to increase property taxes.

If the Assembly passes the bill when the Legislature reconvenes in August and Gov. Pete Wilson signs it into law, the county library system would have to ask the Board of Supervisors to initiate a complicated approval process.

The county library system would inform property owners about the estimated fee amounts, said Albert Tovar, a county library administrator. Officials believe the fee could be between $20 and $80 a year. If more than 10% protested, the tax increase would have to go before the voters, but could be passed by a simple majority.

At the Canyon Country Library on Friday, the staff and patrons said they were distressed by news of the proposed closure, but seemed resigned to its inevitability.

Library manager Kish said the closure plan calls for the 22-year-old library building, which is owned by the county, to be “boarded up” with all books and materials left inside so that it could be reopened at any time. Kish said she doesn’t know yet whether she will be laid off or transferred. She said she could be sent as far away as Compton or Malibu.

Julie Huffman, who brought her three daughters to the library Friday, said she could live with the personal inconvenience of driving to Valencia for her regular library visits.

But Huffman, a fourth-grade teacher at Leona H. Cox Elementary School less than a mile away, worries that she will no longer be able to send her students to the library because the Valencia library is too far from their homes.

“A lot of my assignments for my students were to go to the library for research,” she said.

Only the man reading the Civil Code seemed unpained by the potential loss. He said he was facing 30 years in prison on a bad weapons possession rap. He was reading up on how to sue the district attorney.

Times staff writer Anthony Duignan-Cabrera contributed to this article.