Malibu : City May Help Fund Library

The Malibu city government may pick up the cost of keeping the Malibu Library open more hours if the city and Los Angeles County library officials can agree on the cost.

City Manager David Carmany said he is waiting for a revised proposal from library administrators on the cost of keeping Malibu’s county-run library open for an additional day each week.

The library, at 23519 W. Civic Center Way, laid off two librarians and a library aide and cut its schedule back to three days a week this year because of the county budget crisis. Malibu’s other library branch, at Point Dume, was closed.

Noel Korn, a spokesman for Friends of the Malibu Library, appealed to the council last week to augment the library’s schedule--it is now open Tuesday, Friday and Saturday--by paying for an extra day.

Korn said Friends of the Library has about $50,000 reserved for the facility, but the money is earmarked for books and materials. The group was founded, he said, “to provide the icing on the cake for what the regular budget could not provide.”

Councilman Walt Keller urged the Friends to lobby the county to bring down the $700-per-day cost that it originally quoted the city for daily “bare-bones operation.”

The city balked at the county estimate, noting in a staff report that the city is on a tight budget and projecting a surplus in its 1993-94 general operating fund of less than $300,000.