Budget Cut Affects Library Branches

A $3-million cut in Orange County’s library budget has trimmed operations at branches throughout the county, devastating some and prompting fund-raising at others.

The branch in Stanton, for instance, will be open only three days a week, while volunteers in Los Alamitos are raising funds to keep the branch there open five days a week.

Stanton officials and boosters have been searching in vain for money to keep the library open all week, and they haven’t given up yet, Councilman Harry Dotson said.

“I understand that this branch has one of the most extensive collections of children’s books in Spanish,” he said. “It seems a shame that we can’t have this available to the public.”

Dotson said the council will ask the Kingsmen, a local drum and bugle corps that runs a bingo game in Stanton, to contribute part of their bingo proceeds to the library.

In October, the Kingsmen received permission to hold bingo more than once a week on condition that they donate part of their earnings to other community groups.

The library, which lost $90,000 in the budget cuts, will be closed this Friday as the new schedule takes effect. It will be open Tuesdays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Thursdays from noon to 8 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. It will be closed the other days of the week.

Friends of the Los Alamitos-Rossmoor Library have raised enough money to keep that branch open five days a week for the first half of 1997. The county’s budget cuts had reduced operations to four days a week and had eliminated the post of children’s librarian.

The nonprofit Friends group raised $14,500 to keep the library open a fifth day through the end of June, and is raising a similar amount to keep the branch open five days through the end of 1997.

Two part-time librarians will fill the duties of the children’s librarian. The library’s new hours are noon to 9 p.m. Mondays and Tuesdays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesdays and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. The library will be closed Thursdays and Sundays.

The Los Alamitos-Rossmoor Library is at 12700 Montecito Road in Seal Beach.