Irvine residents could get a new say in what the future of their libraries look like after city council members narrowly voted to have their staff put together an advisory commission to get more input on a new library master plan.
Council members also unanimously voted to look at buying the University Park library building from the county, which they currently lease while operating the library inside it – yet no cost estimates were available.
The plan comes seven months after city leaders left the countywide library program behind, arguing they were losing over $12 million a year to floating other cities’ budgets instead of serving their own residents.
[Read: Orange County Officials Approve Irvine’s Exit from Library System]
Now, Irvine is fully pulled out of the county system and in the midst of coming up with a master plan for the future of their libraries.
Irvine Mayor Larry Agran asked his colleagues to hold off on setting up any extra committees to provide input at their meeting on Tuesday night, saying it would get in the way highlighting the city’s existing community services and library commission as the ones who could take the lead.
“My sense is creating a library advisory committee at this point would complicate things. It would just complicate things and might get in the way of that open, porous give and take that we need,” Agran said.
Instead, Agran called for the master plan to be completed before any advisory committee could be set up.
“Allowing the master plan process to conclude before establishing additional committees will help ensure clarity of purpose,” Agran said.
But many of the residents at Tuesday night’s meeting disagreed, highlighting that the commission doesn’t spend a lot of time talking about the library.
“I think the open, porous intake is potentially working against us,” said one resident. “My concern is…if you’re going to hinge all of this on people showing up to commission meetings and to people finding all the newsletters and different mentions, you’re really counting on people to do what is effectively a full time job. We can’t do it.”
Agran’s council colleagues also disagreed, ultimately voting 4-2 to set up a committee, with Councilman James Mai abstaining.
Councilwoman Kathleen Treseder also pushed for an advisory committee, highlighting that it would have regular public meetings for people to come and weigh in at, with one appointee from each of the seven council members and two at-large members.
“I think the more input we can get, the more outreach we can have, the better,” Treseder said.
Councilman Mike Carroll pushed back, arguing the existing commission could handle all of the work.
“There needs to be a point for the governance of the city of Irvine to operate where the commissions have to do something.”
Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org.