Ventura County Star
Bond lets Camarillo library get off ground
City competed for cash five years ago, got $16 million start
By Cheri Carlson

April 18, 2005

It was a long shot.

In 2000, California voters had approved a $350 million bond measure to build and improve libraries, but getting the cash before the money ran out was going to be tough.

Facing heavy competition, staff members at the City of Camarillo held out little hope for their community.

They didn't think that five years later the city would be getting ready to break ground on a new 65,000-square-foot library project. The $26 million public library is scheduled to open in the fall of 2006 at Las Posas Road and Fieldgate Drive.

But back then, some wondered if it would ever happen.

"City staff had attended a couple of briefings (about the bond money) and were not very confident that we would be eligible or able to truly compete," said City Manager Jerry Bankston. "After about 20 minutes of depression, we decided it was worth a try."

What came next was a fullcourt press to get the state grant, without which the city would not have enough money to build. City officials made up their mind they would get their new facility and, Bankston said, "We never looked back."

About two years later on Dec. 2, 2002, they got word.

Camarillo would get nearly $16 million from the bond proceeds to build its dream library.

The state's share totaled about 61 percent of the project's estimated costs. The Camarillo Friends of the Library raised about $400,000 for the project, and city officials agreed to put up the rest. That includes the difference between original estimates and final costs, as construction prices have shot up in recent years.

Four times the size of the current library, the new facility will also require more staff, higher utility costs, maintenance and a bigger collection of books and materials.

The county operates Camarillo's library and 15 other branches, which all receive a percentage of property tax revenue generated in each service area.

Camarillo's branch will continue to receive about $1.4 million from that tax revenue, but the city will have to pay for the price of its expansion. City officials expect to spend another half-million dollars annually when the library opens. They began planning for the increased costs three years ago, but will also begin fundraising efforts.

The Friends of the Library have already made a significant contribution, Bankston said, and officials hope more donations will expand the library's opening day collection.

Whatever money is raised, he said, the library will remain on track for a 2006 opening.

On Saturday, a bulldozer rolled over the dusty field where the new library will be built.

Several blocks away, dozens of community members wandered through the stacks of the 16,000-square-foot library on Ponderosa Drive. It is a county-owned facility, and it is not yet known what will happen to it when the new library opens.

Traci Tanner, 14, was there doing research for school Saturday afternoon.

"That would be really, really good to have," she said about the new library that will have more computers, books, homework rooms and separate children and youth areas.

The now 30-year-old library is too small for its 93-square-mile service area, said City Councilwoman Charlotte Craven.

"It gets so noisy, if you have to do research there ... it's really difficult," she said.

A councilwoman for more than 18 years, Craven said she remembers the drive to build a new library got started in the spring of 1987. Community members asked for a library that would better fit their needs. But before the state bond measure passed, she said, the money to build wasn't available.

She compared the feeling of construction starting more than a decade and a half later to that of having a really overdue baby.

"It isn't real until you break ground and really do something," she said.

On Friday, her wait will end.