Will the lights go out at Wright?

Last night, the City Council heard two and a half hours of pleas to keep HP Wright Library open, starting with a dozen young people who got the chance to speak first so they could be home for bedtime. Seniors, parents, teachers, kids and other library users paid emotional tribute to the value of having that popular branch accessible to their schools and homes. (To hear the session, click here and then click on the January 26th Council meeting, either for video or MP3 audio.)

County Library Director Jackie Griffin began the session by outlining the rationale for her recommendation to close Wright as part of the task of closing a $650,000 gap in next year's County Library budget. With 14 libraries serving six cities and the unincorporated areas of the County, the system has been hit hard by State cutbacks. In the past, the countywide Library Board has been willing to subsidize Ventura's three libraries with additional funds. But as their surplus has evaporated, the County Library director has reluctantly called for consolidating Wright and Foster libraries in our city. It would save $287,000 a year.

Griffin sympathized with the criticism and outrage from Wright Library users. "If I could pick up the Foster building and put it on a site we own at the Wright location, I'd gladly do it," she has explained. But while the Wright Library is more centrally located and easier for patrons to access than Foster, it is also half the size and lacks both a community meeting room and computer lab, two vital advantages that Foster boasts. Most obvious, the 50 year lease on the property where Wright sits runs out in 2015. Also, as Griffin last night reiterated, if she were recommending Foster be closed instead, the room would be full with supporters of that library. Although it doesn't boast the same book check out numbers as Wright, it actually attracts a higher number of library users (particularly for access to library computers.)

While most speakers focused on the value of what would be lost, a number of speakers presented ideas for keeping the Library open. Will Thompson of the Friends of the Library spoke on behalf of that organization in announcing a drive to raise the $287,000 that Griffin estimates could be saved by closing Wright. He also called for the Council to put "some kind of tax measure on the ballot" to give voters a choice of providing City funding to preserve Ventura's libraries and other vital services. His call was echoed by several speakers, but several Councilmembers, expressed concerns that the public response to previous efforts to raise taxes or fees did not bode well.

Many alternative ideas surfaced, from greater public use of the Ventura College Library adjacent to the Wright Library to creating a less expensive "children's branch." But the mood of the citizens was clearly to do whatever was necessary to keep Wright open.

The challenge is, of course, bigger than Wright Library. Yesterday, corporate America announced 62,000 lay-offs on a single day. Brutal choices are being forced on individuals, families, businesses and governments. It is possible to raise emergency funds to keep Wright open, either from private fundraising or "robbing Peter to pay Paul" schemes drawing on strained County Library or City of Ventura resources. But that not only just postpones the day of reckoning, it actually worsens it -- as the State of California demonstrates. Failure to make tough choices doesn't make those choices go away -- it just makes the eventual choices tougher.

Citizens look to the City of Ventura to provide the level of services they are used to and desire -- in this case a library actually run by the County of Ventura that serves our community. The national economic meltdown has punched a $4 million hole in this year's City budget that is estimated to grow to $5-8 million next year. Will Ventura citizens dig into their own pockets to raise $287,000? Councilmember Carl Morehouse did that last night, writing a $600 check, his monthly gross pay as a councilmember. Councilmembers Summers and Brennan agreed to match that. Another 500 people willing to be that generous would keep the lights on at Wright for another year. But as the economy worsens, private fundraising will only go so far.

In March, we will be delivering a plan to Council to slash $5-8 million in costs from the City's budget, redesigning the way we do business to live with 10% less revenue. There will be efficiencies and cost savings, but the magnitude of the gap is such that there will be more overflow crowds at City Hall, unhappy about losing services.

In the meantime, the Council unanimously approved support for the fundraising effort to keep Wright open, to ask the Library Advisory Commission to look at alternative ways to save $287,000 from Library services in our community and to schedule a discussion next week to publicly discuss putting a tax increase on the ballot to fund Wright and other vital services.

Stay tuned. The time of hard choices has arrived.