City Celebrates New Library’s Opening

The new carpeting is stranded in a snowstorm somewhere between here and Baltimore, but the grand opening of the new Ventura Avenue Library still came off on time Saturday--on bare concrete floors.

Six years ago, the modest little Ventura Avenue Library in Ventura’s oldest, hardscrabble part of town was days away from being closed for good after 65 years.

With a $2.2-million cut to the Ventura County Library Services Agency’s budget, something had to go. The storefront library, also an informal community and cultural center for neighborhood children and parents, faced the ax.

But on Saturday, two blocks down the street from the old Avenue Library, the grand opening of the new, roomier Avenue Library was a joyous occasion for politicians and patrons.

County Supervisor Susan Lacey said, “Any day you open a new library is a great day.”

Urban planner and Library Advisory Commissioner William Fulton underscored Lacey’s point, saying, “The last time a new library opened in Ventura, the population was 40,000 and Lyndon Johnson was president.”

The grand opening was aided by a good deal of collective effort from many government and citizen agencies during the past several years.

When word got out in 1992 that the Avenue Library was slated for closure, Avenue and city residents spoke out against the plan.

Those individual voices soon became one under the leadership of then-City Councilman Gary Tuttle, and Preserve the Avenue Library was born.

A telethon spearheaded by Nancy Cloutier, held in City Council chambers in March 1993, raised $48,000. With other fund-raising, the following month PAL handed a check to the Library Services Agency for $60,000 to keep the Avenue Library open, at least for a year.

The city of Ventura kicked in $15,000. “The Little Library That Could,” the fund drive’s motto, was still chugging and youngsters could still go there after school to do homework and research.

In ensuing years, a new Library Advisory Commission, the San Buenaventura Friends of the Library, the Ventura County Library Commission, volunteers and the Westside Community Council, in partnership with Dave and Donna Stewart, owners of the Casa de Anza building, where the new library would be housed, worked together to bring the old structure back to its former glory.

Its first floor, at 606 N. Ventura Ave., houses the new Avenue Library; the top two renovated floors will be rented out as low-income housing.

The new library will officially open the week of Jan. 19.