ELECTIONS / LIBRARY INITIATIVES : Backers Hold Out Hope for Tax Hike OK : Three November ballot measures would levy a $35-per-parcel charge. Opponents say the county should permanently assume the funding burden.

Even with the future of public libraries at stake, getting homeowners these days to approve a property tax hike is like finding volunteers for a root canal.

So, from selling T-shirts signed by Ojai artist Beatrice Wood to staging a mock funeral for libraries, supporters are trying to create enthusiasm for three November ballot initiatives that would raise property taxes $35 per parcel.

With the Nov. 7 election less than a month away, voters in Ventura, Ojai and the unincorporated areas between the two cities will vote on separate measures designed to rescue their branch libraries from the brink of closure.

Measure proponents concede it will be tough to get approval from two-thirds of the voters, which is needed to pass the initiatives. But they also say that if voters reject the measures, up to seven small branches may shut down when temporary county funding runs out March 31.

“It means that the local public library located right in the community will no longer be able to serve residents,” said Dixie Adeniran, director of the county’s Library Services Agency, who has tossed nearly $3,000 of her own money into the initiative campaigns.

“I don’t see anything on the horizon in terms of funding. If we are going to find a remedy, it’s going to be in our own back yard.” By raising property taxes $35 per parcel in Ventura, Measure L would generate $1.1 million annually in additional revenue for the city’s three libraries.

The cash injection would keep the Avenue Library from closing and nearly double the hours at the city’s Foster and Wright libraries, now open only three days a week.

Ojai’s Measure O would increase property taxes on apartment units by $25 and by $35 on homes and commercial properties.

The tax would pump an additional $100,000 into Ojai’s library, boosting weekly operating hours to 57 from the current 37.

And Measure N will ask residents living in the county’s unincorporated areas between Ojai and Ventura to pay $35 more per year on their developed parcels, producing $224,000 annually for the Meiners Oaks and Oak View libraries.

Most library backers agree that these two small branch libraries, now open about 16 hours a week, will close at the end of March if the measure fails.

Other libraries slated to shut down include branches in Piru, Saticoy, Oak Park and Soliz-El Rio, although facilities in Piru and Saticoy may stay open if special federal funds are approved.

Despite these prospects, Bruce Bradley, the county’s assistant registrar of voters, predicts the library measures will fail.

“Two-thirds of the vote is too hard to get,” Bradley said. “That was done on purpose to make it really difficult to raise property taxes.”

But library measure backers answer that the property tax hike works out to 10 cents a day. And besides, they argue, it’s not just about money.

The issue, they say, is nobler--one of free access to information.

Without the libraries, supporters say, people such as 34-year-old Jackie Logan would never have a chance to improve their lot.

Logan, an Oak View mother of two, had trouble applying for jobs or even getting a driver’s permit because she used to read at only the third-grade level. Two years ago, Logan found a literacy tutor at the Oak View Library, who helped her improve her reading skills.

Last week, after about 10 years on welfare, Logan got a housekeeping job at a local hotel. And she recently passed her driver’s permit test.

“That library came to mean a great deal to me and my children, too,” Logan said. “If it hadn’t been there, I would not have found my literacy teacher.”

Even if voters approve the measures, the tax is not guaranteed to raise any funds for new books. Nor will the tax generate money to repair county library buildings. Parts of Ventura’s Foster Library, for instance, are no longer earthquake-safe.

Library backers blame the county’s slowly shrinking Library Services Agency budget on Proposition 13, the 1978 measure that restricted the amount of property taxes the state could impose.

What’s more, since 1992, cuts in state funding to local governments have devastated the agency, which has slashed its budget from $10 million to $5.8 million.

The agency has lost 56 positions--42% of its staff--since 1991. And its book budget has dropped from $1.1 million to $350,000 in the same period.

“It’s almost like the Ventura County Library Services Agency is the Bosnia of library services in the United States,” Adeniran said. “It is bad. Very, very bad.”

Although no state mandate requires the county to fund its libraries, the Board of Supervisors allocated $984,000 this year from the county’s general fund to keep the county’s 16 branches open through March.

Supervisors say the money was only a temporary solution to buy communities time to come up with their own strategies for raising library dollars.

Yet some library measure opponents say the county should permanently assume the funding burden instead of putting another obligation on residents.

“Why should we go to the taxpayers?” asked Mike Saliba, president of the Ventura County Taxpayers Assn. “After public safety, libraries should be considered a very high priority and should be funded out of the [county’s] general fund.”

Camarillo became the latest city to ask voters to further subsidize their libraries when its City Council voted in September to put a parcel tax measure on the March ballot. But other city leaders dismiss the parcel tax idea as politically unpalatable. “Our community is not really excited about raising taxes,” said Greg Stratton, mayor of Simi Valley.

With nearly $10,000 in its campaign coffers, Ventura’s Save Our Libraries Committee has blanketed the city’s downtown with “Yes on L” posters and has planned several splashy fund-raisers, including a wine-tasting auction at Ventura Harbor Village on Saturday.

Volunteers are poised to start walking more than 80 precincts to bring their Measure L gospel to Ventura voters. The group hopes to raise a total of $20,000 by November.

“We want to do radio spots, local TV, that sort of thing,” said Barbara Swanson, Ventura’s Save Our Libraries co-chairwoman. The Save the Ojai Valley Libraries committee opened its war chest with $5,000 in seed money from the local Friends of the Library organization. Like their Ventura counterparts, Ojai library backers are sending out mailers to frequent and absentee voters.

And at $20 apiece, Wood’s T-shirts--a portrait of the artist reading a book--should net another $2,000 for the group’s campaign.

The odds may be long, but such a campaign is not impossible. Two years ago and after two failed attempts, Santa Paula library supporters won two-thirds voter approval for a $25-per-parcel tax hike that has doubled that library’s budget.

While other libraries have pared back their hours and laid off staff, Santa Paula’s Blanchard Community Library this year has more than doubled its hours, hired three new employees and quadrupled its book budget to $35,000 from $8,000 a year ago.

Daniel Robles, the district librarian, said library supporters learned from experience. They put the initiative on the ballot during an off-year election. And library workers maintained a high profile, by showing up at chamber of commerce mixers and community functions.

But Robles said measure supporters always had a tough time making voters think more about their library books than their checkbooks. “It’s like mom and apple pie,” Robles said. “No one is really against a library. But they are against taxes.”