Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Activist Suggests City Take Over 3 Library Branches : Budget: County officials are skeptical about the proposal. Valencia, Newhall and Canyon Country facilities reduce hours.

The city is facing a common story of what to do with its three local libraries now that Los Angeles County has greatly reduced its funding.

One local man thinks he has a solution.

“It’s my goal to create an independent library system with the city of Santa Clarita rather than L. A. County,” said David Cochran, who is active in the Santa Clarita Valley Democratic Club. “The people of this community funnel a lot of their tax dollars into the county and they don’t have any control over this part of their lives.”

Los Angeles County’s 1993-94 budget significantly affected all 88 library branches. The cutbacks have forced 54 facilities to close and the 34 remaining sites to reduced their hours by more than half. County officials blame the state’s removal of more than $1 billion in property tax revenue as the cause of the cuts.

The Canyon Country and Newhall libraries are now open 14 hours per week and the Valencia Library is open 21 hours per week because of the reductions.

Cochran said taking charge of those three libraries is important for the same reason that Santa Clarita became a city nearly six years ago: local control.

“I don’t think we’re being served by the county,” said Cochran. “I think the control of the public libraries should be here in the community.”

Library officials are skeptical about another agency either trying to duplicate county library services or stepping in to take over parts of the program.

The Valencia Library incurred $1.77 million in annual operating expenses for the 1991-92 budget year, while Canyon Country cost $423,000 and Newhall cost $402,000 to run.

Even higher costs would be incurred by any group trying to start their own library services, said David Flint, assistant director of financial planning for the Los Angeles County library system.

“Usually (library supporters) come to the conclusion it’s more expensive for them to run things themselves than to hire the county to do it,” Flint said.

Cochran contacted Santa Clarita Mayor Jan Heidt about his takeover proposal, hoping that her ownership of a local bookstore would make her more receptive to the idea of a city-run library.

Heidt agrees that the suggestion is interesting, comparing it to Santa Clarita’s planned takeover of Bouquet Canyon Park from Los Angeles County.

The county has already turned over two parks to the city of Los Angeles and has plans to give up control of eight others to cities by this fall, including Bouquet. Santa Clarita is taking control of Bouquet and will pick up maintenance responsibility for the county-owned Del Valle and Hasley Canyon parks.

However, Heidt said, the only way that Santa Clarita can operate the three local libraries is if additional funds are found. She echoed Flint’s idea of paying for extra hours of service rather than completely taking over the program.

“To me, we have a lot of library resources here that can be expanded,” Heidt said, citing links established a few years ago between local school libraries and county libraries to share information.

Cochran believes that many Santa Clarita residents are willing to pay for library services through some sort of benefit assessment fee and that volunteers could help the program.

County libraries now use volunteers for some part-time work, but officials are doubtful that the system could run primarily on unpaid help.

“If it were that simple, we would have been doing it ourselves,” Flint said.