Irvine is looking to officially ditch the countywide library system after years of arguing with county leaders over funding and setting up their own program in-house next year.
Their departure takes away nearly 28% of the county’s entire library funding and over 167,000 items in their catalog under a new plan Irvine City Council members are expected to discuss tonight, according to a city staff report.
The shift would put the city in control of the Heritage Park and University Park Libraries, along with at least $9 million in funding to manage both branches per year, with plans to develop a new department to oversee the city’s libraries.
But it also carries some major shake ups for Irvine.
In a July 8 phone interview, City Manager Oliver Chi said the Katie Wheeler Library will be closing because it’s on county park land, but city leaders plan to replace it along with adding a new Great Park branch.
City leaders have been airing long held frustrations with the county library over the past year, pointing out that while they contribute more money than most cities and hold some of the busiest libraries in the county, they only received around $4-5 million a year in funding.
“It will be an expansion of the overall library system,” Chi said, referring to the new funding. “It’s a great base to build a library system.”
City council members are expected to finalize the move at their 4 p.m. meeting Tuesday.
[Read: Irvine Looks To Leave County Library Network, Kicking Off Fight for Funds]
Danilo Serranilo, a spokesperson for the county library, declined to comment on any of the details of the deal, saying negotiations were still ongoing.
But Chi said the move will come at a price.
In exchange for the library branches and their material, along with the county helping cover startup costs, the city is giving up its claim to a $28 million pot of funds county leaders and Irvine officials have been fighting over for years.
Chi said while the total value the city is getting from the deal is less than $28 million, they were able to use that money as a bargaining chip to get more long term funding for the library.
“From the one time dollar perspective, we didn’t get the full $28 million,” Chi said. “It was more important for us to get ongoing dollars … that makes up for the one time dollars. 100%.”
The shift also opens the door for a new branch coming to the Great Park, where city leaders have set aside land for a new library, but have yet to get the county’s approval on.
But if Irvine bails out of the county library system, it won’t need the county’s greenlight.
Chi also noted that while there’s no clear future for the Katie Wheeler Library just yet, city staff are already considering what it would look like to set up another library branch in the western part of the city to replace it.
“They haven’t told us really what they’re planning on doing long term. It likely gets reconverted into a museum or a cultural amenity,” Chi said. “We probably need 4-6 branch libraries to effectively serve everybody in town along with a central library.”
Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @NBiesiada.
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