Ventura Council May Fund Extended Library Hours : Books: Money from the city would enable two local county branches to stay open longer each week from January to August.

Faced with mounting public pressure, the Ventura City Council tonight will consider whether to spend $145,000 to keep local libraries open longer.

The money would keep two local branches open a total of 13 additional hours weekly between January and August and pay for an automatic checkout machine at the mid-town branch.

Presently, neither the H. P. Wright Library on Day Road nor the E. P. Foster Library downtown operates more than 20 hours a week. A staff of 10 shuttles between the two facilities.

Neither branch is open Fridays, as Ventura resident Randy Davis, pulling up to Wright library just as the sun set over its empty parking lot, learned to his chagrin.

“You just assume a public library is going to be open,” said Davis, owner of a charter boat company.

He gestured at the darkened building. “This is a waste of taxpayer money right here.”

Like those who have crowded city meetings and mailed impassioned letters to the council and local newspapers, Davis said the city should do whatever it can to keep the libraries open more hours.

The issue is hardly a new one at City Hall. Only five months ago, many of the same council members said they would not pick up the tab for what has traditionally been a county responsibility.

But with county finances remaining tight and residents clamoring ever louder for more hours at their neighborhood branches, the council’s Finance Committee agreed earlier this month to recommend the expenditure.

The proposal now has strong support among the council members.

Councilman Gregory L. Carson said in July that he would wait for the county to ante up the money. But earlier this month, at a Finance Committee meeting jammed with restive residents, he quickly agreed to spend city money at the two branches.

Councilmen Jim Monahan, Gary Tuttle and Steve Bennett also say they support the idea.

Councilman Jack Tingstrom, who has railed against the county in the past for its miserly attitude toward the libraries, said Friday that he might spend some city money if he thought that library officials had a solid, long-term plan for funding the city’s branches.

Even Mayor Tom Buford, who admits that he has “serious reservations” about allotting the libraries money when the city itself is in tight financial straits, said he may vote for the proposal.

“The libraries have overwhelming support, as far as I can tell,” he said.

Councilwoman Rosa Lee Measures could not be reached for comment.

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Residents and library officials have also discussed putting a $10 to $35 annual parcel tax on the ballot, saying that would ensure permanent and ample funding for the library branches.

Wright is now open from 2 to 8 p.m. Mondays, noon to 6 p.m. Wednesdays and 1 to 5 p.m. Saturdays. Foster is open from noon to 8 p.m. Tuesdays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursdays and 1 to 5 p.m. Saturdays.

A recent library fund-raising drive raised $7,677 from residents, allowing Wright, beginning in January, to stay open two hours later Wednesdays and Foster to begin operating two hours earlier Saturdays.

The recent fund-raising efforts also paid for the Avenue Library, the city’s smallest branch, to open at 1 p.m. instead of 2 p.m. Mondays. The Avenue branch nearly closed two years ago, but a city telethon collected enough money to keep it open until June, 1996.

Many city and library officials agree that the present recommendation to spend $145,000 through August is only a temporary panacea. In the long term, they say, the city must find a new home to house its entire library collection.

One site mentioned repeatedly at the Finance Committee meeting is a vacant furniture store at the Buenaventura Mall. Carson, however, said the building would need extensive and costly retrofitting.

The council committee’s recommendation came in response to a library board vote last month to ask the city for funding.

Alternatively, some board members wanted to shut Wright, at least temporarily, and move all its books to Foster so it could operate 40 hours a week.

That proposal, however, met with fierce resistance from other board members as well as many eastside residents, and it was shelved.

Wright is far more popular with readers than Foster, circulating nearly 225,000 books a year to Foster’s 107,000.

But Foster is the county’s main reference library, with a collection of 133,000 volumes. Wright, by contrast, only has 97,000 books.