Libraries could shoulder brunt of budget cuts

Meanwhile, the city’s police and fire departments, which have combined budgets of nearly $113 million in the General Fund, had few programs ranked as “discretionary” and in turn have proposed minimal cuts, according to a preliminary draft budget document.

“It’s disproportionate,” City Councilman Rafi Manoukian said Wednesday of the proposed library cuts. “I understand it’s not a straight cut. It just doesn’t make sense.”

The Chevy Chase branch — which was previously on the chopping block in 2009, but saw minimal weekly hours maintained after community protests — saw only 5,260 patrons last year and made up less than 1% of the library’s circulation figures, officials reported.

“The reality is the only time the people are in the library in any significant numbers is when volunteers do programming. It really is not a fully functioning library,” Libraries Director Cindy Cleary said. “But the community does need and deserve some city service up there.”

The Casa Verdugo branch, which checked out about 55,000 items last year, would close completely, but could serve as a temporary location for the book collection from Brand Library and Art Gallery during renovations that could take up to two years.

Besides Manoukian, who made it clear he didn’t support the cuts to libraries, the City Council has said that the options are still preliminary, and that no firm budget decisions would be made until later in the process.

Cleary said the proposed cuts are designed to have as minimal effect on patrons as possible.

“Of all our libraries, it’s the one that probably would have the least impact because people would have an alternative place to go,” she said of the Casa Verdugo branch, which is about 2 miles from the main Central Library.