Liebmann to Serve on Library Board

Moving to gain more authority over how the city’s library is operated, the City Council is expected Wednesday to appoint Councilman Bill Liebmann to a county library oversight committee.

The eight-member committee will make recommendations to the Ventura County Board of Supervisors on how the county library system should be run. The committee will include one elected official from each of the library system’s seven member cities and one county supervisor.

“Each city participating in this committee will be able to directly control some of the services--based upon the individual community’s needs,” Liebmann said. “I personally think that was lacking when the decisions were being made at the county level.”

The library committee will also decide on budget priorities.

“We’d be able to keep an eye on the way the libraries are being administered so that we don’t fall back into the patterns that ultimately led to the inefficiencies now finally being corrected,” Liebmann said. “There were too many resources devoted to administration and management and not enough resources devoted to providing library services to the public.”

Liebmann began serving as the city’s representative on the county’s library implementation committee in February when county officials were considering breaking up the library system.

Camarillo City Council members opted to join the library committee in June after making it clear that the integrity of the library system needed to be maintained by an entity other than the county.

The committee’s first meeting next month will focus on preliminary budget discussions.

Liebmann said the $30,000 the county has allocated to the Camarillo Library to upgrade its book supply is insufficient and that he hopes to negotiate additional funding.