Panel Backs Assessment District to Aid Libraries : Ventura: Under resolution, City Council could tax residents $35 per parcel without approval from two-thirds of the voters.

A Ventura citizens commission on Tuesday unanimously recommended taxing city residents to pay for longer hours and more books at the city’s three library branches.

The seven-member Library Advisory Board passed a resolution asking the City Council to create a citywide library benefit assessment district. The resolution will be forwarded to the council by Monday’s meeting.

The assessment district--which would charge residents $35 per parcel--would allow the council to tax residents for the libraries without first receiving approval from two-thirds of the voters.

Board members also discussed several other funding options, including a parcel tax that would have required a potentially expensive campaign to put the issue on the November ballot. In discussion before their vote, board members said the advantage of an assessment district is that it would immediately provide funds to the strapped libraries and circumvent the need for voter approval.

“If we presented this (resolution) as soon as possible to the City Council and let them cogitate on it for a while and then present them with (signatures in support of the district), they might be more inclined to vote in favor of it,” said board member Keith Burns.

The money, about $1 million, would give the beleaguered branches--now open on schizophrenic schedules and scrambling to pay staff and buy new books--the ability to stay open six days a week and purchase materials.

Ventura Mayor Tom Buford predicted that council members will be wary of an assessment district because of an anti-tax sentiment among voters. “The way you go about this is as important as what you do,” Buford said. “But (the assessment district) is probably one of the few options we really have available.”

Ventura Councilman Gregory L. Carson said the council is already considering joining a countywide parcel tax initiative proposed for the November ballot. If the initiative fails countywide but passes in Ventura, he said, the city could still tax its residents for library service.

Carson said he did not particularly like the idea of creating an assessment district, because voters should have a say in their own taxation. But he added that some tax must be approved if the city’s libraries are to survive.

Last year, the mid-town and the downtown branches--victims of a severe budget crunch--stayed open fewer than than 20 hours a week each.

With public pressure mounting, the City Council agreed in December to spend $145,000 to keep the branches open a total of 13 additional hours weekly between January and August of 1995.

Currently, H.P. Wright Library, on Day Road in mid-Ventura, is open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays. E.P. Foster Library, on Main Street in downtown Ventura, is open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesdays, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursdays, and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays.

Recent fund-raising efforts have also saved the tiny Avenue Library from encroaching extinction.

The Avenue Library on Ventura Avenue is open from 1 to 6 p.m. on Mondays, from 10 a.m to 1 p.m. and from 2 to 6 p.m. on Tuesdays, and from 2 to 6 p.m. on Wednesdays and Thursdays.