Panel to Seek $220,000 for 2 Libraries : Ventura: The board agrees to ask the city for the funds and decides against urging closure of a popular eastside branch.

Under a barrage of protests from eastside book lovers, Ventura’s Library Board decided Wednesday not to recommended closure of H.P. Wright, the city’s most popular library and the one that serves Ventura’s east end.

Instead, the board agreed to ask the City Council for $220,000 over two years to open both H.P. Wright and the city’s main reference library, E.P. Foster, for many more hours than they are now. Neither library is open more than 20 hours a week now because of budget problems.

A second request for $75,000 would pay for automatic checkout machines at H.P. Wright near Ventura College--a move board members said would speed checkout and cut employee costs.

As a long-range solution to nagging budget problems, the Library Board said the city and county--which funds Ventura’s library system--should find a single central site where both Wright and Foster could be consolidated. A possible site is a vacant furniture store at the Buenaventura Mall.

“The longterm question we need to face . . . is where this full library will be located,” board Chairwoman Sally Weimer said.

But Ventura City Councilman Steve Bennett told Library Board members and patrons that they should not count on the city to solve the financial problems of the county library system.

“I would be very surprised if the council said, ‘Yep, let’s do this,’ ” he said.

The county’s head librarian, Dixie Adeniran, suggested last week closing H.P. Wright and moving its 97,000 books to E.P. Foster in the city’s downtown, so at least one Ventura library could be open full time.

Acting partly on the head librarian’s urging, the Library Board agreed to consider the issue. But last night, Adeniran suggested the three-pronged solution that the advisory library board embraced, 5 to 2.

The two libraries now share a 10-person staff. With the two facilities merged, staff members would not have to shuttle back and forth and E.P. Foster would have an annual budget of $1.45 million.

But H.P. Wright is far more popular with readers, circulating nearly 225,000 books a year, while E.P. Foster checks out 107,000.

The seven-member Library Board will send its recommendation to the City Council, which could then make its own proposal to the Board of Supervisors.

Wednesday afternoon, residents scanning the H.P. Wright shelves for books said they could not believe anyone would consider closing down their neighborhood landmark.

“That is a big, big mistake,” said a frowning Matt Jayich, 71, flipping through a stack of books. If the county won’t pay the extra money, he said, the city should ante up.

“My wife and I were talking about this at lunch,” he fumed. “(The City Council) is willing to go out and spend $15 million on a stupid ballpark when the kids are running out of books. Why would they need a reference library way downtown? The schools are here.”

Some Ventura council members agree that the city might have to step in and help its three libraries--including one on Ventura Avenue--through the current crisis.

“I think we ought to reach into our pocket,” Councilman Jim Monahan said. “If we can find the money somehow to do it, let’s do it.”

But Councilman Jack Tingstrom protested that the city should not take on a county burden.

“I think the county hasn’t stepped up to this issue. They are ducking their whole responsibility,” he said, his voice rising in frustration. “They know darn well that people will run to their cities to complain. But I can’t even afford my own Police Department. (Residents) are barking up the wrong tree.”

In fact, the county has found extra funds for its library system. Drastic funding cuts by the state means the county now receives only $5 million a year to operate its 16 libraries. Just to keep a bare-bones operation in place, the county has subsidized that budget with $1.6 million a year the past two years.

Still, the county cannot afford to keep its libraries in Camarillo, Fillmore, Simi Valley, Moorpark, Ojai, Port Hueneme and Ventura open more than half the week, library officials said. Thousand Oaks, Oxnard and Santa Paula have their own library systems.

In Simi Valley, a community group paid to install automatic checkout machines at the city’s one library, significantly reducing the amount of staff members needed. That and other measures have increased library hours from 32 to 43 a week.

In Ojai, the city donated $30,000 this year to keep its library open 46 hours a week, far more than proposed by the county.

And last year in Ventura, with the city pitching in $15,000, residents raised $52,000 through a telethon and enabled the tiny Avenue Library to remain open part time through June, 1996.

H.P. Wright is open Mondays from 2 to 8 p.m., Wednesdays from noon to 6 p.m. and Saturdays from 1 to 5 p.m.

The 133,000-volume E.P. Foster facility is open Tuesdays from noon to 8 p.m., Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturdays from 1 to 5 p.m.

The situation is confusing because readers consistently come on days when the libraries are closed, and grow frustrated, board members said Wednesday.