Oak Park Seeking Action on Library Upgrade

The library at Oak Park High School is small, underused and antiquated. And school district trustees say a school with high-achieving students deserves better than this primitive facility.

The Oak Park Unified School District board tonight is set to discuss ways to get a bigger and better library for the high school’s 740 students. The 7 p.m. public study session will be attended by Ventura County officials, architects and leaders of this unincorporated county community of 15,000 people east of Thousand Oaks.

Though trustees have wanted to relocate the library--now sandwiched among other Oak Park High buildings--to a more visible spot off Kanan Road for about five years, they say the county, which jointly operates the library, has been holding up the plans.

“It’s been an excruciatingly slow process,” said Trustee Jim Kalember. “It’s the county’s inability to get a plan going. If they cannot quickly resolve the situation, the school district has the option to pursue funding a library of its own.”

County Supervisor Frank Schillo, a strong library advocate, said that the delay was not intentional, but that it has taken three years to find enough money to complete the project.

“We’ve been working on this all along, trying to fund-raise,” he said. “I’m 100% committed to it.”

Aside from the county’s difficulties, another delay occurred because the school district attempted to swap land with the Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District to provide a larger parcel for the library. After months of wrangling, that plan was dropped because legal obstacles made it too expensive.

But after so many years of delay, Oak Park librarians say a modern, easier-to-find space is sorely needed.

“We have a small amount of books,” said Bill Corum, a county librarian who works at Oak Park High’s library. “And many of them, shall we say, are out of date. . . . Like our computer books are from the 1970s-something.”

The library at Oak Park High is unusual in that for 17 years its staff, books and resources have been shared with Ventura County’s library system. During the day, the library is staffed by a school librarian, and only students may use it. After 3 p.m. and on Saturdays, the public may check out books with a county-paid librarian on the staff.

Other communities, including Chula Vista, Palmdale and Scottsdale, Ariz., have such “joint-use” library systems, which allow officials to split costs between government agencies, said Alan Langville of the Ventura County Library Services Agency. In Ventura County, Piru Elementary School also shares a library with the county, he said.

The plans for a new Oak Park joint-use library include constructing a building on an empty plot of school land off Kanan Road, where it would be easier for the public to reach.

Plans also include doubling the building’s size to about 10,000 square feet; doubling its circulation materials to about 40,000 books, CD-ROMS and videos; adding Internet-ready computers; and creating a 44-space parking lot. Adding a bathroom--the current library doesn’t have one--would also be part of the project.

Oak Park Supt. Marilyn Lippiatt said the school district has not been updated by the county on when and how construction could take place.

“Where are we? That’s a good question,” she said. “We don’t have any idea.” The school district is hamstrung, she added, because although it owns the property, the county controls the purse strings.

The county has collected $2.1 million from developers’ fees that could be used for the library, and the school district has $400,000 for the project that it received in school construction funds from the state.

But Kalember, the trustee, said that if the county does not move fast enough in committing to a revitalized library, the school district may abandon the idea of continuing the joint-use agreement with the county.

He said the $400,000 from the state could be used to buy supplies for the current library, which would then become a high school-only building. Residents could borrow books from libraries in Thousand Oaks or other nearby communities, he said.

But even if the county and the district can complete plans for a shared library, Lippiatt said, she is worried that plans are only being made for the construction of the building.

“What will be the operating budget for the inside of the library?” she asked. “What about books? Furniture? A beautiful shell does nothing for our students if there are no plans for what’s in the library, let alone for adults.”