Moorpark OKs Plan to Expand Library Hours : Council: Donations and redevelopment funds will add 26 hours per week, beginning next month and continuing through June.

The Moorpark City Council has decided to use a combination of community donations and redevelopment funds to expand the hours of the Moorpark Library, which were dramatically cut last summer during the county’s budget crisis.

The commitment to increasing library hours came after a council meeting Wednesday when a string of residents assailed the more than 50% reduction in hours since August and urged a council response--even though the library is owned and operated by the county.

“You have a library here, it’s a really great library,” Moorpark High School sophomore Shaily Trivedi told council members. “If people can’t use it, I don’t really see the point of having it.”

The library is now open from 3 to 7 p.m. Mondays and Tuesdays, 1 to 5 p.m. Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays and closed Fridays and Sundays--down from an old schedule of 51 hours per week.

Resident Peter Hadley carried his 4-year-old son Benjamin to the podium Wednesday and positioned the youngster in front of the microphone. “I would like to have the library open more because I want to borrow more books,” Benjamin said.

Following Hadley’s lead, Nancy Sampson brought her three young daughters before the council and let Talia, 7, deliver the family’s message.

“I think the library should be open more times, ‘cause then you can get in more times and you don’t have to worry about rushing into the library before it closes,” Talia said. “You wouldn’t have to rush so much.”

After fielding the public testimony, the council discussed an offer from the county to expand the current library schedule by 26 hours per week from Jan. 1 through June 30 at a cost to the city of $14,670.

Martha Lepine, president of Moorpark Friends of the Library, offered to donate $2,445--money the group had raised toward new library books--to the city to pay for one month of the additional hours.

Despite initial reservations about accepting the donation and diverting it from its intended use, council members eventually agreed to take the money, which will allow the almost immediate expansion of library hours around Dec. 15.

Council members then decided the city should begin negotiating with the county to see if it will accept the balance of the $14,670 in the form of Redevelopment Agency proceeds the city is already committed to paying the county over the next 10 years.

Under this approach, the city would not be expending general fund dollars to offer residents new hours, but would merely be making an early payment of funds it has already promised the county through its redevelopment agreement.

“These are redevelopment funds that we’d be willing to advance to them,” Mayor Paul Lawrason said of the offer to the county. “(Normally) they would be getting this money way down stream and if you played the compounding game between now and then, it’s really probably not such a bad deal,” he said.

Council members also asked Lawrason and Councilman Scott Montgomery to work with the county on reducing operating costs at the library and finding ways to ensure that basic library operations in the future don’t hinge on the fate of yearly budget deliberations.

Based on information the city obtained from the county--while operation of the Moorpark Library was budgeted at more than $412,000 last year--only $185,122 went into on-site operations. The rest, council members said, was spent on county overhead such as professional contracts, auditing services and other expenses.

The budget also showed that the county paid $24,361 last year on custodial services at the library, a figure council members questioned.

“It does look like $24,000 is a whole hell of a lot of money for custodians,” Lawrason said. “For me, the bottom line is we need a long-term solution. We’re Band-Aiding right now.”