Library Board Ready to Negotiate With County Over Los Altos Library Issues

The local library authority has voted to pursue talks with the Santa Clara County Library District while it holds in abeyance an exploration of the two cities seceding from the library system.

The North County Library Authority (NCLA)  will ask the councils of Los Altos and Los Altos Hills to designate Jean Mordo and Ron Packard to begin talks with the county in early 2012.

"I would like more local control," said Packard, a member of the authority, during the Nov. 11 NCLA meeting. Whenever they say, 'There's a rule,' I always ask, 'Who's making that rule?'"

The Town Council of Los Altos Hills is scheduled to consider the NCLA's recommendations on Dec. 7, and the Los Altos City Council on Dec. 13.

The board set aside plans for a feasibility study for running Los Altos Library independent from the Santa Clara County Library district while it makes a good-faith effort to pursue talks for a couple of months.

This leaves several months to decide if it wants to pursue secession from the county library system. Aug. 1 is the date by which a notification to the county can be made, and separation can take place by July 1 of the following year, according to Steven Mattas, City Attorney for Los Altos Hills, who provided legal research for the NCLA.

Talk of Los Altos and Los Altos Hills seceding from the library district began last June, after Joint Powers Authority, which governs the nine-city library district, instituted for non-residents.

Anger over the fee prompted Mordo to suggest so that it would not have to charge the fee. It  precipitated a reexamination of what Mordo has contended is a grossly unequal fund-sharing arrangement with the library district. What Los Altos and Los Altos Hills puts into the library district in the form of property taxes, and what it actually gets, which Mordo estimates at $1 million annually.

Karen Duncan, a member of the told the authority that the cities held a strong hand, according to her research. The foundation had assigned her to independently research the question of secession, which will be ready after Thanksgiving for public review, she said.

Mattas went over different aspects of how tax revenues—property tax, county parcel tax, NCLA parcel tax—might be divided in the event that Los Altos and Los Altos Hills left the library system.

Aspects of local control was repeatedly touched upon during the meeting, with examples of what some described as onerous restrictions on the kinds of non-cash donations the libraries can receive, from art to furniture.