Library Opens, as Does New Era in Financing

County libraries continue to operate on a shortened, four-day schedule and an ever-shrinking budget. Yet, Rancho Santa Margarita residents will see a new “techno-friendly,” $6-million library open in their community today.

How was the cash-strapped county able to afford it?

Easy. It didn’t cost the library system a dime. Construction costs are being completely paid by local homeowners.

“We’ve had to adapt to the times and use whatever resources we can find,” said County Librarian John Adams. “Otherwise, our chances of building a new library out of county funds is nonexistent.”

Rancho Santa Margarita will be the county’s 28th branch, but only the second to open since 1987--a testimony to a recession-ravaged library budget that lost more than $5 million last year and could drop by a similar amount in fiscal year 1995-96.

Although residents are paying a special tax to build the library, few if any people in the fast-growing Saddleback Mountain communities have spoken against the new public facility.

“It’s going to mean just about everything to this community,” said Jack Wynns, editor of a local community newsletter. “I think very few people will object to paying taxes for a library.”

Until today, the options were not appealing to the community. Residents had to drive up to 10 miles to either the El Toro or Mission Viejo branches, which were already far too small to serve the patrons in their immediate areas.

For years, rural residents in the foothills of eastern Orange County made do with few amenities, but with Rancho Santa Margarita growing from 8,000 to 22,000 people since 1986, Wynns said the library has come just in time.

“This will be the civic and educational focal point for the whole area,” he said of the new branch, which is in the community’s future town center. “This will make a lot of people around here very happy.”

The cost of happiness is about $6 million.

Under a development agreement signed with the county, the Santa Margarita Co., which developed the community, fronted construction funds for the project. Bonds were sold to pay back the developer. A special tax has been placed on residents so homeowners pay off the bonds.

With the recession still affecting library systems around the state, counties such as Los Angeles and Riverside have begun working with developers on similar deals to build public libraries, Adams said.

“Where population growth has created a need for more facilities, this has become a way for new residents to pay for what they need as they go,” he said.

With few county branches opening in recent years, county librarians have been forced to watch the Computer Age and its bounty of information services pass them by. No longer.

The 16,300-square-foot branch here will “be the first in our system to have an on-line catalogue fully operational,” Adams said. “We’ll have on-line magazines and newspapers indexing.”

Another first among county libraries for the Rancho Santa Margarita branch will be a quiet room, Adams said.

“Modern libraries are far from the stereotyped silent chambers of the old days,” he said. “Today’s library has a lot of activities and a lot of people in them.”

The branch will be run by Diane Alter, who said her staff is “pretty hyped up after four weeks of putting this place together. We’re coming down to the wire now, but everyone is still smiling.”

Still, despite all the excitement in the Saddleback Mountains communities over the new library, the facility will still be open only four days a week--a reminder of the financial situation facing the county library system.

“There is a certain irony to that,” Adams said.