Approval of Measures A and B necessary to avoid major cuts
Santa Clara County’s first major mail-in ballot election is a $1.8 million push by a library system facing debilitating funding cuts.
“It sounds like a lot of money, but it’s a reasonable investment given the loss of revenue and library services,” County Librarian Melissa Cervantes said Tuesday.
The $1.8 million is the price the Library District Joint Powers Authority must pay the county registrar of voters to host the election. Because the ballot is a special election solely for the benefit of the nine county libraries, the JPA must bear the full cost of the process. The JPA has spent about $65,000 on polling and consultants.
Library fans have joined forces to get as many “yes” votes as possible to the registrar of voters.
“It’s not good enough to be in favor of libraries,” said Carol O’Hare, co-chair of the Morgan Hill Measure A/B campaign. “If you don’t work to pass A and B, it won’t happen and the results will be dire.”
If the measures don’t pass, library patrons face having only 30 hours a week to check out books, use the free Internet and enjoy storytime. Before recent cuts in October, the libraries were open 54 hours a week. New book, video and CD purchases would also be threatened and library employees could be laid off, reducing services.
The mail-in ballot will have two questions. Measure A would extend the present annual tax of $33.66 for another 10 years. Measure B would assess each parcel an additional $12 a year – $1 more a month. Librarians say the renewal is needed to maintain what is a steadily deteriorating financial outlook. The additional levy would allow the system’s nine libraries to reopen on Mondays and restore cuts to the libraries’ books and materials budgets.
For Measure B to pass, Measure A must also pass. If Measure A fails, a parcel tax that raises $5.4 annually for the library system will expire at the end of June. That revenue, 21 percent of the libraries’ budget, is ever more critical because libraries have lost some state funding and revenue from vehicle registration taxes. Last year, a $1.1 million budget shortfall forced all nine libraries to close on Mondays.
Making passage more difficult is the need for a two-thirds majority (almost 67 percent) saying yes, not just the normal democratic majority of 51 percent. A similar measure in March 2004 only gained 61.17 percent countywide, though Morgan Hill provided the third highest yes votes in the system (61.75), following only Los Altos and Los Altos Hills. Gilroy came in last with 56.60 percent.
Election law prohibited the measure from appearing again on November’s general election.
The county libraries are located in Morgan Hill, Gilroy, Milpitas, Los Gatos, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Saratoga, Cupertino, Monte Sereno, Campbell and Alum Rock, plus the Bookmobile. The system also includes residents of unincorporated areas – San Martin.
Each community is mounting a separate Support Our Libraries campaign. Together, the cities are hoping to raise $250,000 for a series of informational mailings and supplies. To date, campaigners have solicited about $100,000.
The Morgan Hill Support Our Library Campaign is mainly centered on calling likely voters, making sure they know what the measures mean and alerting them to the ballot in their mailboxes April 4. Follow up calls will encourage voters to make sure their ballots reach the registrar by Tuesday, May 3. A May 3 postmark will not do.
Campaign consultants advised supporters that they need to get about 400 people a week in each city to pledge to vote yes on the measures to have a chance at success. O’Hare said that almost everyone she’s talked to has expressed support.
“As of Thursday night, our callers had reached more than 1,200 voters about the election, finding that 85 percent are in favor, 2 percent are opposed and 13 percent are still undecided,” O’Hare said.
The last day to register to vote is April 18 (www.sc cvote.org). Supporters hope the mail-in election will play in their favor by allowing them to track the voting.
Morgan Hill School Board Trustee Kathleen Sullivan has asked that the board endorse the measures at a special meeting Monday, March 14.
Bert Berson is a Morgan Hill Library commissioner and co-chair of the local campaign.
“This election is not just about keeping the library open, but about the quality of our educational system over the next 10 years,” Berson said. “If the library measures fail, it will effect the future of our children as well as property values.”
The election will leave about $2.4 million in JPA coffers. Cervantes said the reserves are left over from a few years in the late 1990s when property tax revenue exceeded expectations.
“The board was prudent in its judgment not to ramp up services when it was probably a one-time source of revenue,” Cervantes said.
To donate www.supportourlibraries.org or send a check to Support Our Libraries, P.O. Box 1522, Cupertino, CA 95015. To offer to help, call bberson@be rson.com or call O’Hare at 782-9029, [email protected]
