ELECTIONS / MEASURE Y : Library Backers Hope for Low Turnout on Key Issue

A low-key but pivotal ballot measure to be decided Tuesday in Santa Paula has library officials crossing their fingers and banking on a small voter turnout.

While registered voters in Santa Paula’s special library district agreed in November to pay $25 a year to keep their branch open, a state law requires that they also give officials permission to spend the money.

Measure Y asks them to do just that.

It is a non-contentious, undebated issue that if not approved by a majority of voters Tuesday would virtually negate Measure W, the library tax that would generate about $170,000 each year.

There are no billboards urging a yes vote looming above downtown, and no “Yes on Y” placards lining Main Street.

“It’s frightening this time because it’s so positive out there,” said Gene Marzec, a retired school administrator working to get Measure Y passed. “I haven’t heard one word against it.

“Everybody figures it’s a done deal and there’s no problem with it,” he said. “But it does kind of get you squeamy that there’s no opposition to it.”

The campaign to date has consisted of one mass mailing to registered voters.

It also included a few speeches by library boosters to Santa Paula service clubs and a handful of volunteers mailing informational flyers to absentee voters. Supporters also paid for one small advertisement in a local newspaper.

“What we decided to do was go for the money first and then go for the appropriations limit,” said Daniel Robles, librarian for the Santa Paula Union High School Public Library District.

“We just didn’t want to confuse the issue because it’s a real hard thing to explain,” he said.

A state law adopted in the aftermath of Proposition 13 requires special districts and other agencies to gain voter approval before they spend more property tax money than was spent in an established base year.

Robles said he considered recommending the so-called appropriation initiative for the November, 1993, ballot alongside Measure W. But he was afraid people would misunderstand the issue.

“We tried that in 1990, but people got confused,” Robles said. “They thought one was asking for a per-parcel tax and that the other was a special assessment.

“Even though (the appropriation measure) was not a monetary request, people took it as one,” he said.

This time around, Robles and other library boosters decided early on to separate the two measures.

In last November’s election, the library tax received almost 69% support, just two percentage points above the two-thirds needed to pass. Measure Y requires a simple majority to pass.

Blanchard Library, which operates independently of the county library system, is open just 18 hours over three days a week. The library would increase its hours to 30 or more each week over five days if Measure Y is approved.

“We’re not asking for anything pie in the sky,” Marzec said. “But you can’t continue to exist with the funds that we’re getting and still reasonably call it a library.”

Funding for the Yes on Measure Y campaign was provided mostly from leftover cash from Measure W committee donations, Marzec said. He estimated the Measure Y committee has spent less than $2,000 promoting the initiative.

“Maybe not even that, to be honest,” Marzec said. “It hasn’t been a terribly high-key campaign.”

Robles said that if the measure fails, the library district would be able to spend the $25-a-year assessment this coming fiscal year, under a legal opinion from the Ventura County counsel’s office.

But future funding, despite the November approval of the per-parcel tax, would become unavailable, forcing the library to again scale back its hours, he said.

The library director said he hopes for a low voter turnout to minimize confusion over the issue. That way, he said, more voters familiar with the measure would cast ballots.

“Lacking a concerted campaign effort, those are the two items I’m banking on,” Robles said.