Vote Requirement Is Hurting Libraries

It’s so sad to see our libraries embroiled by the perpetual threat of the Jarvis/Gann taxpayer groups who have held important services hostage to the artificial and undemocratic two-thirds vote.

The supervisors are up against the closure and disintegration of libraries, and they have chosen courageously to rescue our libraries by one of the only alternatives left to them for a new and stable funding source--the benefit assessment. The process is only beginning, and there will be time for the cities and public to review the results of a management study and organization proposal and for public comment before enactment. The need is unquestionable, and public support for an assessment for libraries has been demonstrated by the recent poll and by the well over 50% vote in each library parcel tax election in November and March.

In addition to insisting on a two-thirds vote for our libraries, taxpayer groups have also said that, since our library special district money was taken by the state, the state should give it back. It might be enlightening to review what has gone on this year in an attempt to get back some of the local tax and special district money that was diverted by the state to its Educational Resource Augmentation Fund.

There were five or six bills in the Legislature this year attempting in different ways to return money to cities, counties and special districts. Our supervisors and other local officials personally lobbied in Sacramento for help on this and were rebuffed. The California Library Assn. and its network of supporters urged passage of these bills. A group of volunteer local citizens visited all our Ventura County state legislators in Sacramento to urge support.

With all this effort, we are told that, as of now, all of these bills are dead. The $150 million that many local officials had hoped would be used for this purpose was diverted to the “Cops Bills”--$100 million for youth crime prevention programs. Schools are reaping billions in the state budget, also. But even after a huge letter-writing effort, library advocates were able to increase the $8-million Public Library Fund (the only item in the governor’s budget for public libraries) to the munificent total of only $20 million for all the public libraries in the state!

It’s about time someone realizes you have to pay for our other great public education institution--the public library. Our supervisors have faced the harsh funding realities, and I hope the cities and the public will also, so we can once again have decent public libraries in Ventura County.

CATHERINE J. PENPRASE

Port Hueneme