Last-Minute Plan Spares Five Libraries From Closure

After listening to nearly 30 people pleading on behalf of their local libraries, the Orange County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a last-minute plan that blocks the proposed closure of five neighborhood libraries.

Gina Ryba of Garden Grove was nearly in tears as she recalled for the board how she tried to tell her 5-year-old son that he might no longer have a local library to visit.

“How do I explain that to him? He doesn’t understand budgets. . . . He said to me, ‘Mom, don’t they know I just got my [library] card?’ ” Ryba said. “My son’s right. We need our libraries.”

The board originally was scheduled to consider a proposal that would shut six of the county’s 28 libraries in the wake of budget cuts and the bankruptcy. The libraries on the chopping block included two branches in Garden Grove and others in La Palma, Silverado Canyon, Villa Park and Seal Beach.

To make up for the closures, the county also proposed increasing service hours at several libraries that were to remain open.

But the proposal outraged residents across the county and sparked a variety of efforts to save branches. Nearly 9,000 residents signed petitions, and the supervisors were flooded with hundreds of letters from people demanding that their libraries be saved.

Some even got their message across with empty soda and beer cans that were wrapped with the note “Can the Library Closure Plan!” and dropped in the mail to board Chairman Gaddi H. Vasquez.

Late Monday, Vasquez and Supervisor Jim Silva announced that they had put together a proposal keeping five libraries open two days a week and allowing cities to increase service hours at their own cost. The Seal Beach library is expected to be sold at auction and operated as a private facility.

The proposal received the unanimous approval of the board Tuesday. Most of the 30 people who spoke at the meeting applauded the proposal, but many were quick to point out that a two-day-a-week schedule is insufficient.

“Two days a week is not optimal; we all realize that,” said Marge England, president of the Central Orange County Area of the League of Women Voters. “But it’s a start.”

The star of the public hearing was Bobbie Corbett of Garden Grove, who related how her son had called her recently to find out who is pictured on a $500 bill. It seemed that a bar wager was resting on the answer. Corbett said she promptly contacted the library to find out.

“But I’m not going to give you the answer,” Corbett told the amused board members and the laughing crowd. “You will have to call the library!”