Shasta County Taxpayers Say: Read My Lips (but No Books)

On Main Street in this small Northern California town is a green-and-white stylized directional sign representing a person holding a book. The sign reads: “Library” and the arrow points east.

“Don’t you believe it,” sighed Sharon Thomas, 53, librarian in Cottonwood, population 4,500, for 19 1/2 years. “There is no library. It closed last June. It is now an antique shop.”

All the public libraries in Shasta County--the main library in Redding, and nine branches--were closed June 30 when the county ran out of money to run them. There is no plan to reopen them.

This makes Shasta County the only county in the state--perhaps, folks here say, the only one in the nation--without a public library.

Last March, voters in the county resoundingly defeated a ballot measure proposing a half-cent addition in the sales tax to keep the libraries open. The vote was 8,887 yes to 19,029 no. Then, a Sept. 13 ballot measure to reopen only the two libraries in Redding, the county seat, was defeated 6,657 yes to 8,383 no.

“It’s so depressing,” lamented librarian Thomas. “Until now, I had always considered libraries sacred to the American way of life. I’m just sick.”

The September ballot measure was fought by a group that calls itself the Silent Majority Against Raising Taxes (SMART), headed by car salesman Vernon Packer, 35, of Redding.

“We’re for libraries but people in the county are fed up with taxes. It was a case of citizens pushing back at the ballot box. It’s the only way we know how to push back,” Packer said.

Shasta County’s economic crunch became critical a year ago. Sheriff’s Department expenses were up by $1 million over the previous year. The Shasta General Hospital closed its 73-bed facility last November after overrunning its budget.

The 10 libraries were closed from Oct. 15, 1987 to Jan. 6, 1988, at which point the supervisors provided sufficient funds to reopen them on a limited basis until they were shut down again in June.

“Civic leaders and the business community came out strong for the two library ballot measures, but the public in general voted against both of them by large majorities,” recalled Elaine Kavanaugh, 42, administrative analyst for Shasta County.

“People here say they’re not anti-library, just anti-tax. They think they’re being taxed to death. All the rural counties in Northern California are feeling the pinch.”

Pay Raises a Factor

Pay raises granted sheriff’s deputies and other county employees shortly before people voted on the library tax issues played a major role in defeating both measures.

“Our politicians have their priorities in the wrong place,” said Dave Golab, 33, a cabinetmaker from the town of Central Valley, echoing the sentiments of many. “I voted against a tax for libraries, not because I’m in opposition to libraries, but because I’m against the politicians and the way they spend our money.

“It’s stupid closing the libraries. But you give, give, give. There comes a time when you say enough is enough.”

SMART, in a letter to the Board of Supervisors recently, claimed $1.5 million could be shifted from unneeded programs in the county budget to the libraries. But County Executive Officer Michael Johnson responded, saying SMART was wrong.

For example, said Johnson, SMART suggested shifting $1 million set aside to upgrade county computers to the library. “If we did that, there would be no information systems program and the county would not be able to function,” he said.

Books have been boxed and moved out of the branch libraries to the basement of the Redding library. The buildings once leased as branch libraries have now been transformed into shops and offices.

The Redding, Enterprise, Burney and Anderson libraries, in buildings owned by the county, are boarded up.

“Libraries were budgeted $848,000 for the 1987-1988 fiscal year,” said Kavanaugh, Shasta County’s administrative analyst. “By closing the libraries, $248,000 of that was saved. But a lot of expenses were incurred with the closures and paying off the 54 library employees who were terminated.”

For the fiscal year that began July 1, the library system is receiving $208,000--that includes closure costs, the salaries of two librarians kept on to maintain books stored at the main library, and maintenance and utility costs.

Carolyn Chambers, 39, acting Shasta County librarian, and Shirlene Mantei, 43, assistant librarian and with the library 19 years, continue to take phone calls at the Redding library, process borrowed books still being returned, file government publications, magazine subscriptions and purchased books that continue to arrive.

Some Shasta County residents are making long drives to libraries in adjacent Tehama and Siskiyou counties for reading and reference material.

Some use the library at Shasta College, the two-year community college in Redding. “We are open to the public, but our collection is primarily for the support of the curriculum offered at the college and our students come first,” explained librarian Maureen Stephens.

“We do not carry the selection of novels that a regular public library would, nor do we have a children’s library. Our library complemented the public libraries in the county but the collections are not the same.”

Stephens said the college library is crowded with large numbers of non-students since the county libraries closed. “We are doing our best to accommodate people but if the public overruns us, we will have to close our doors to the public.”

In Fall River Valley, population 600, residents banded together, donated personal books and opened their own library, the Fall River Valley Library Corp.

The library opened Sept. 12 in a private home rented for $50 a month. Volunteers built book shelves, and 6,000 hard-back books and 5,000 soft-cover volumes were donated.

Eugene Lucas, 59, a retired telephone company executive and his wife, Kathy, spearheaded the drive to start the Fall River Valley library. Twenty-eight people are paying $25 every three months toward renting the house, paying for the lights, and operating a library telephone. The library is staffed by 30 volunteers.

But the existing libraries have failed to fill the gap created by the closure of the county facilities. For example, an adult literacy campaign for the 21,000 Shasta County adults who cannot read has been discontinued. Several organizations and clubs met in the libraries. That practice has stopped.

Monica and Gary Parshall put their house up for sale, sold it and moved with their four children to Salinas when the libraries closed. “We cannot live in a county that doesn’t have libraries,” insisted Gary Parshall.

“As you can well imagine, there is a great deal of concern by the educational community about closing the libraries,” said Ken Matias, 49, superintendent of the elementary and junior high schools in the town of Central Valley, population 3,895.

“Teachers no longer ask their students to do reports requiring research. There is no place to go to get the information. It is a nightmare we’re hoping will go away soon.”