City Council discusses new library, site

A half-hour discussion of the long-proposed new library coming at the end of a recent late-night City Council session resulted in a unanimous vote for developing a plan to maximize “multi-uses” for a new facility.

But the council stopped short of making a final decision on the location for a new building, leaving intact prior action labeling the now-vacant 4.7-acre “strawberry field” on Lakeview Avenue a bit north of the Stater Bros. shopping center as “the preferred site.”

Previously eliminated as a library site were the open pad east of the Community Center, the central portion of the proposed Town Center and the “tank farm” in the Vista Del Verde area, east of Lakeview Elementary School.

Various renderings of a 45,000-square-foot, one-story facility have been prepared, showing the building on different sections on the preferred parcel, some with all surface parking and one with both surface and subterranean parking.

One drawing shows the library building close to Lakeview Avenue, with the rear 1.25-acre portion left for other, unspecified development. The land, purchased by the now-defunct Redevelopment Agency, is currently city-owned and can only be used for “governmental purposes.”

Financing a new facility, estimated in 2014 to cost $29 million, is a major problem. The state-mandated 2012 dissolution of the Redevelopment Agency eliminated a key resource by ruling out the use of agency-issued bonds.

According to the most recent city budget documents, prepared for the current and next fiscal years, the library has a reserve fund balance of $7.9 million, but, “together with the operating fund, the library has approximately $16 million in reserves set aside for a new facility.”

Library operations are funded by a property tax stream separate from the city, a remnant of the old Yorba Linda Library District that merged with the city in 1985 after 71 years as an independent public agency with its own taxing authority.

The property tax income is expected to total nearly $4.6 million this fiscal year and about $4.7 million the next fiscal year. An annual $550,000 had been added to the reserve fund the past several years.

The most recent expansion to 28,500 square feet costing $3.7 million was completed in 1992. A previous expansion, costing $585,000, occurred in 1971. The current site opened in 1960 at 6,000 square feet with the proceeds of an $80,000 bond approved on a 280-39 vote.

The library district's original five-member elected board of trustees transitioned to a council- appointed commission when the city took over operations, an action unanimously approved by both the last elected library board and the then-sitting council members.

During council discussion, Tom Lindsey suggested a two-story library and cultural arts center for the site, Peggy Huang noted the library's need for more space and Gene Hernandez said the library is a sign of the quality of the community.