City to Study Costs of Municipal Library

Council members considering pulling away from the county library system asked the city staff Wednesday to look more closely at the costs of running a municipal library.

If the city ran its own library, “at least the community could decide for itself what level of service it wants,” Councilman Robert D. Breton said at a council meeting.

A decision to separate from the 27-branch library system would be unprecedented in the county, county library officials say. Since Mission Viejo began looking into seceding from the county system, several other cities have expressed interest, City Manager Fred Sorsabal said.

“Out of those in the O.C. library system, there are four (cities) who have talked to me about what we’re doing,” Sorsabal said.

City officials referred constantly Wednesday night to a recently issued consultant’s report that they said confirmed many criticisms and suspicions that they had harbored about the local county branch.

Among the conclusions made in the report:

* The 9,155-square-foot library, which serves about 106,000 residents of Mission Viejo and parts of surrounding communities such as Laguna Hills, is severely undersized. The branch is twice as congested as county standards allow and five times more crowded than recommended in state library guidelines.

* Mission Viejo residents have been charged $4.5 million in special district taxes since 1988 that city officials say should have been used to build a new library. The Orange County Board of Supervisors chose instead to use the money to support the county firefighting system.

* Local taxpayers also contributed about $1 million in property taxes that is earmarked for the local library branch, which only costs about $800,000 to operate. County library officials dispute those figures in the report, saying the Mission Viejo branch ran a loss of about $200,000 in fiscal year 1992-93.

Two years ago, the city spent $2.5 million to purchase land at La Paz Road and Marguerite Parkway for a new library, but a $5-million construction bond failed to win approval from voters. Since then, the city and an independent library committee have failed to find new sources of funding for the planned 25,000-square-foot library.

County Librarian John Adams says the county is no longer responsible for building libraries in communities that have incorporated. The county would contribute proceeds from the sale of the current library building--about $1 million--but will not commit any more funds.

Since receiving word of the report’s conclusions, council members have come to believe that the city can do a better job of running the library.

But council members were still cautious about committing to leaving the county system. More research is needed to make certain that taxes are enough to run the library, council members said.

“There’s no doubt that the five of us want a new library,” Councilman William S. Craycraft said. “The challenge will be funding it.”

And even if the books balance, getting the county to turn over the tax revenues earmarked for the local library could be a long and complicated process. A legal report issued last week by City Atty. Peter M. Thorson was inconclusive about the city’s legal rights to the library tax revenues.

Thorson said it would take about five months to complete the process of separating from the county.