Council Supports Library Authority

Buoyed by support from the Ventura County Board of Supervisors earlier this week, the City Council on Wednesday agreed to participate in a joint powers authority aimed at propping up the area’s struggling library system.

Council members voted 4 to 0 to join the authority, which would transfer most library responsibilities to the cities served by its branches. Councilman Mike Morgan was absent.

The authority would also ask Ventura County voters this fall to support a special tax to extend library hours.

“It’s the only way that I can see that we can have adequate funding for the libraries in the future,” Camarillo Mayor David M. Smith said before the meeting.

The proposal must be approved by the other cities now served by the Ventura County Library Services Agency, a department whose budget has been chopped by millions of dollars in recent years.

Plans call for voters in November to decide whether to support a $25- or $30-per-parcel assessment that would pay for more library hours. Unlike previous ballot measures that failed to gain the required two-thirds voter approval for a county tax increase, the November issue would require only a simple majority under the joint powers rules.

“When the Camarillo proposal was voted on, it got more than 50% of the vote,” Smith said. “And that’s all that’s required.”

Councilman Ken Gose supported establishing the joint powers authority, but expressed some reservations.

“Everybody should have an opportunity to pay for the libraries and this is only the landowners,” Gose said. “I don’t think that’s right.”