Voices Raised Over Library Furniture Costs : Renovations: Palos Verdes group charges that $1,983 leather chairs and $344 trash cans are too high. Trustees call the expenses consistent with what other systems spend.

On the upscale Palos Verdes Peninsula, some residents may be used to nothing but the best.

But many affluent residents draw the line when it comes to furnishing the newly renovated Peninsula Center Library with $1,983 leather chairs and $344 trash cans.

Manufacturers were about to deliver the chairs, tables and sofas, but the library district’s board of trustees decided Thursday after an acrimonious meeting to try to slash the $1.3-million furniture budget by about $425,000.

Trying to bargain-hunt after furniture has been ordered will be expensive. One manufacturer, Westfall Interior Systems Inc. of Long Beach, said it would charge $32,000 if the order for its furniture is canceled.

It is too late to cancel $274,000 in artwork, including two bronze cheetahs, a carved column, stone and mosaic works and etched glass. And furniture for the first phase of the project--which one trustee estimates will cost $104,357--will arrive in two weeks.

The furniture orders have ignited a bitter debate on just how opulent a library the peninsula needs. Critics say the library can find chairs and tables that are cheaper, just as durable and as aesthetically pleasing.

“There really is the opportunity to get the same quality for a lower cost,” said library trustee Harold Jesse. “Instead of buying a Lexus, we got a Rolls-Royce.”

But other trustees who helped plan the project defend their selections, calling them consistent with what other libraries recently built or renovated have spent. Los Angeles County furnishes libraries at $25 per square foot while Peninsula Center will cost $20.71.

“We’re not the Taj Mahal of (library projects) by any means,” trustee Janet Smith said. “It’s incumbent upon us to furnish it, finish it and do it well.”

Renovations to the library, which has remained open, are expected to be completed by early next year.

Residents may not have been so up in arms over love seats and study carrels three years ago when voters passed a $16-million bond issue to fund a portion of the project, which will more than double the size of the library.

But last year, faced with cutbacks in state funding, the library was forced to cut hours and staff, and nearly closed its only two branches, at Miraleste and Malaga Cove.

Since then, the community watchdog group Save Our Libraries has been highly critical of how money is spent in one of only a handful of special library districts in the state.

District board meetings, once of interest only to die-hard patrons, have turned into sometimes heated sessions with standing-room-only crowds. And the district’s November elections overshadowed other races on the peninsula.

Members of Save Our Libraries argue that needs at the two branches were ignored so that a palace-like main library could be built. They dispute claims that furniture spending is not excessive, and have conducted their own survey of state library projects to show it.

“The grander they can make the project, the grander they are going to be,” said Palos Verdes Estates resident John Dixon, one of the organizers of the group.

Spending on furniture has been the group’s most recent target. Their most-mentioned example is the $1,983 leather seats. The district has ordered 31 of the chairs from Eastman Inc., a furniture manufacturer, and plans to place them in lounge seating areas.

Furniture plans also call for 36 stools at $277 each, four $1,108 love seats, a $1,519 rocking chair, four $1,691 dictionary stands and four trash cans for $344 each, according to lists from some of the library’s contractors.

Library officials say the group has unfairly chosen the most expensive examples and ignored cost savings elsewhere. The project’s interior designer, ZGF Partnership in Portland, came in $50,000 below budget, library officials said. In addition, Library Director Linda Elliott said in December that the amount of furniture planned for staff offices could be cut.

Although $344 for a trash can may sound expensive, they are meant to last for 20 years, Elliott said.

Trustees decided several years ago that $274,550 in artwork was reasonable to ensure that the facility did not overlook the need for an art component, Elliott said. The bronze cheetahs, one of which will greet visitors to the children’s area and another that will be a centerpiece in that room, are being finished by artist Gwynne Murril. She also is making a carved column that will feature endangered African animals.

“Rarely in this world does paying less guarantee higher quality at better value,” trustee Janet Smith said. “The only way to save such vast sums, in my opinion, is to accept poorer quality at lower cost.”

Some residents suggest that the district should hold off on buying much of the new furniture.

“It’s like someone who lost their high-paying job and now works at McDonald’s,” said Robin Stevens, a Rolling Hills Estates resident, told the trustees Thursday night.

“Then he goes out and buys a Cadillac.”