ELECTIONS / SANTA PAULA : Voters Asked to Approve Tax Hike to Aid Library

Santa Paula’s librarian, Dan Robles, gets perturbed when the silence is broken inside the Blanchard Community Library, but he’s even more worried about the silence outside the library.

Next week, Santa Paula voters will decide whether to approve a new property tax assessment to prevent further cutbacks at Santa Paula’s 83-year-old library. The signs of support for the measure are all around town, and no one has come forward in opposition.

“The silence is real scary,” Robles said. “It’s unusual that no one has come forward against the measure. I don’t know whether to be excited or concerned.”

Measure W would impose a $25 annual levy on property in the city.

If just one-third of Santa Paula’s voters oppose the measure, it will fail. A similar proposal in 1990 won a majority of votes but failed to get the necessary two-thirds required for such assessments in California.

Robles and other boosters of the city-owned library are concerned that another quiet minority will thwart the effort to pass the tax measure that could restore services at the beleaguered library.

The library’s budget was slashed by more than half 15 years ago, when the state and county were first hit by reductions in tax revenue due to the passage of Proposition 13. Since then, the library has limped along, with Robles, who mostly does administrative work, as the only full-time employee.

He is aided by a dozen part-timers, but because at least two of them are needed to run the front desk, the library’s budget of $218,000 covers only 18 hours of operation a week.

Local realtor Robin Binder, who was browsing through the library’s books earlier this month, said she plans on voting for the new tax but understands why someone might decide against it come Election Day.

“When it comes down to it, they don’t always vote with their convictions but with their pocketbook,” Binder said. “Money’s tight and they might just be fed up with taxes. But it’s just a few cents a day.”

The few cents would translate into about $175,000 a year for the library through an annual tax on each of the town’s 7,000 homeowners and businesses.

As it is now, said Gene Marzec, chairman of the Save Our Library Committee, which sponsored the measure, the library is operating on reserves. During the last two years alone, the library lost $53,000 in revenue from the state, and the latest round of cuts threatened to shut it over the summer, he said.

But the library kept its doors open by limiting hours, stopping custodial services and cutting back on such things as buying books. With continuing budget shortfalls in Sacramento, Marzec said the prospect of even more cuts is almost guaranteed.

“We’ll get hit again,” said Marzec, who is also on the library advisory board. “We’re operating on reserves just to make it through the year.”

Marzec said the library’s fortunes have declined ever since 1978, when Californians rolled back property taxes with Proposition 13. Libraries, like local police and fire services, are dependent on property taxes, he said.

Measure W would earmark enough money to fund three-fourths of the library’s budget, Marzec said. This would free the library from worries that cuts in Sacramento could end its service to the community.

“The state can’t touch this money,” Marzec said. “We wrote this measure so the money can only be used for the library.”

While no one has officially taken a stand against the measure, a Ventura County taxpayer group is calling the measure another attempt to bypass Proposition 13.

“We haven’t come out against the measure, but we oppose special assessments which are just a way to circumvent Proposition 13,” said Jere Robings, president of the Ventura County Alliance of Taxpayers.

Robings said special assessments help legislators in Sacramento avoid making the budget cuts intended with Proposition 13.

Now the 10,125 eligible voters in Santa Paula must decide on whether they should make up the state funding cuts with a tax.

“I’m leaning toward voting for the measure,” said John Wisda, a former lumberyard owner who is working on a budget committee set up by the City Council. “I don’t like taxes, but we need a library for our kids, and I don’t have a good alternative for raising the money.”

The big question is what will be most important to voters when they step up to the ballot box on Tuesday.

As Laura Phillips went through children’s books with her two sons one evening, she said a library is a good way to spend tax dollars.

“We see all this money being taken away from cultural things and going to the state,” said Phillips, a technician for Chevron who has lived in Santa Paula for six years. “The library helps people improve their lives. It’s a way to keep kids on a positive track.”