Valley Libraries Fear Veto Was the Last Gasp : Funding: Officials say the governor’s rejection of bill could force closures of branches throughout the county.

A year ago, the San Fernando branch of the Los Angeles County library system--one of dozens in California hard hit by severe budget cutbacks--was open six days a week.

Then it cut back to five. Then to three.

If there was one glimmer of hope library manager Judith Babka had set her sights on, it was a bill the Legislature passed giving cities and counties a new funding mechanism to restore library hours and services. To anyone who would listen, she urged: Write to the governor, please, and here is a sample letter pleading our case.

Gov. Pete Wilson vetoed the bill late Friday, dealing a blow to Babka and other library supporters statewide, and raising the ire of the bill’s author, Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Van Nuys) and Los Angeles County officials who had asked Roberti to carry the legislation.

The bill’s defeat, library officials now predict, may mean library closures throughout the county, including some in the San Fernando, Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys.

The bill would have permitted local governments to set up assessment districts to levy charges on property owners to help pay for library services. It also would have allowed for the sale of bonds to pay for library construction.

Such districts already exist to fund county fire departments, flood control, sewer maintenance, street lighting and parks programs.

But the governor, arguing that libraries benefit the entire community and not just the property owners being assessed, said the bill would have created “a new tax masquerading as a benefit assessment.”

In his veto statement, Wilson also said the bill would have allowed a tax to be levied for two years before voters had a chance to cast ballots on the matter.

Roberti’s press secretary, Steven Glazer, said the governor was wrong in his analysis of the bill. In Los Angeles County, for example, if the Board of Supervisors had voted to create an assessment district, the bill required that the issue be placed before the voters within the year.

“Three cheers for ignorance, because his action effectively tears up the library cards for hundreds of thousands of California children,” Glazer said. “It is disappointing that he refuses to give the authority and accountability to local elected officials and, ultimately, local voters for preserving their community libraries.”

Equally chagrined was David Flint, Los Angeles County’s assistant director for library finance and planning, who in recent days had been preparing to plan for how the new law would raise $32 million a year for his financially strapped library system.

“If you read the veto message, it’s pretty clear he didn’t know what he was vetoing,” Flint said.

Charging that Wilson is failing in his pledge to be the “education governor,” Flint said the governor was “obviously arguing a political justification, one not founded in fact.”

Wilson did sign two other library financing bills earlier last week, and touted them as proof of his commitment to “protect libraries for our children and our future.” But library advocates characterized them as housekeeping measures that did not create new funding sources.

Had the Roberti bill become law, Los Angeles County could have restored services at 43 of its most vulnerable 87 libraries or bookmobiles, Flint said.

Although the city of Los Angeles’ library system has fared much better, half of the county’s libraries were targeted for closure last summer after the Legislature shifted property taxes from local governments to schools. An emergency allocation from the supervisors has kept those 43 libraries or bookmobiles open two days a week.

“We have no choice now but to cut service,” said Flint, noting the supervisors had funded the salvaged libraries only through January and will now have to decide again whether they can afford to keep them operating.

Going down the list of possible closures, Flint said three of four library outlets in the Santa Clarita Valley were destined to be shut down--the Newhall branch, a Santa Clarita bookmobile and the Canyon Country branch. Only the Valencia branch would remain open.

“This is the pits for the north county area,” he said. Also on the list were branches in Westlake Village, Calabasas and Lake Los Angeles, as well as bookmobiles in the Antelope Valley and Agoura Hills.

Flint, Roberti’s office and Joe Boisse, co-chairman of the California Library Assn.’s legislation committee, said they will rally again in Sacramento early next year to try to resurrect a funding proposal for libraries.

“We’ll be back again next year. We are not going to give up,” Boisse said.

Boisse, librarian at UC Santa Barbara, called the veto “extremely disappointing,” saying even higher education suffers when college students have been denied access to libraries as youths.

At the San Fernando library, Babka said she was “on tenterhooks” all week while waiting to hear of the bill’s fate. The library isn’t slated for closure, but Babka had hoped to expand its three-day-a-week schedule.

Since last summer’s budget cuts, her branch--always known for the friendliness of its staff and a spirit of support from the community, she said--has gone through a wilting metamorphosis. Now Babka encounters not only fewer patrons, but more faces pressed against the window, long lines at the book check-out counter and fewer new books.

“People are very disappointed to find we are closed much of the time,” Babka said. “They bang on the door so hard, sometimes we think they are going to break it down.

“It’s extremely busy when we are open. It’s very, very stressful for the staff and it makes it difficult to help people with research questions as much as you would like.”

The book drops are always full, 50 magazine subscriptions come only by the grace of donations and Babka hasn’t bought a new book since March.

“We are mobbed helping students who go to the library after school until their parents pick them up,” she said.

Babka is especially burdened with worry over what happens to these latchkey children on days when the library’s doors are locked.

“The problems go far beyond books and reading,” she said. “If we’re not open, the children are on the streets. The social ramifications are incredible. It gets far more expensive to remedy that later on.”