Santa Barbara County city to continue running local libraries despite concerns about higher price tag
The Solvang City Council voted to extend its agreement with the City of Goleta to operate the city’s library, despite a greatly increased cost, during its regular meeting on Monday, June 23. Councilmember Elizabeth Orona was absent from the meeting.
In introducing the item, the first discussion item of the night, City Manager Randy Murphy explained the library situation in his report.
Goleta has been operating the library since 2019, when Santa Barbara County divested itself of that responsibility. The libraries operated by Goleta (considered the county’s Library Zone 4) include its own, Solvang’s, Buellton’s, and the ones in the unincorporated areas of Santa Ynez and Los Olivos.
The current five-year agreement for library management was set to expire June 30, one week after the meeting, and Murphy recommended council approve the deal for another year, albeit at a sizable increase: $284,855, which would bea nearly $100,000 hike from the previous agreement.
“We’ve been working under an agreement where they didn’t have any inflators [to increase the price], and they’ve been a good partner,” Muphy said. “Our finance staff has been in discussion with their finance staff, and have determined that this is a legitimate amount.”
Murphy also pointed out that the $284,855 amount was in the budget that the council had approved earlier in the meeting as part of the Consent Calendar.
However, councilmembers had their concerns about the larger price tag.
“A hundred thousand dollars, that’s a big nut,” Mayor David Brown said. “That’s almost a 50% increase; I’m trying to justify it.”
Goleta Director on Neighborhood Services Joanne Plummer, whose department includes the libraries explained earlier that both Goleta and Solvang had the right to renegotiate terms after each year, but during the first five years a number of factors hindered that.
“Right after the first agreement started, we had COVID, and after that there were changes in the leadership on both sides, and the sides were only recently able to get together and talk about another agreement,” she said.
Plummer said in the last five years, the libraries were working under increased costs under the same budget and operating at a loss.
“The last few years, we’ve been taking money out of reserves, and operating in the red,” she said. “We can’t keep operating under the current terms; we need to increase the cost.”
Councilmember Mark Infanti noted that Solvang’s library space is too small and asked who would foot the bill if the city found a bigger space to move into.
“The city (of Solvang) would cover the cost of moving into a new facility,” Plummer said. “We would need to review the new space and determine what staffing would be sufficient, so there could be an increase there.”
Councilmembers Claudia Orona and Louise Smith both expressed the need for more information about the libraries, with Orona inquiring about staff size and the number of visitors to the Solvang Library, as well as the satellite locations in Los Olivos and Santa Ynez. Smith mentioned that libraries are offering numerous services other than just books, and wanted to know what the Solvang location had to offer in that area. Plummer said that could be found in the libaries’annual report.
Murphy reiterated that he felt the agreement was fair.
“The finance staff pored over this and determined it’s a legitimate increase,” he said. “The only way to cut expenses, is we could cut hours, but we’re already not open on Sundays and Mondays. I recommend approving it now to keep the library open.”
Eventually, Infanti, who serves on the city’s Library Committee, move to approve the contract, with Smith seconding, but not before Brown requested a report on the library’s progress in the future. Plummer assured council that was in the agreement and she could return in October for that report.
The council voted 4-0 to approve the agreement.
In other council business:
In a public hearing, the council unanimously adopted a resolution amending the appropriation limit for fiscal year 2025-26 to $26,362,892 for the General Fund. The number was determined by a calculation called Growth Factor that took into account per capita personal income and population change.
However, City Attorney Chelsea O’Sullivan reminded that notice of the public hearing was posted on June 12, 11 days before the meeting when the requirement for it to be posted is 15 days prior. Because of that, the item would remain for public review until the next could meeting, and it could be ratified then.
Council unanimously approved a agreement with SaberDome Corporation dba Lanspeed for information technology managed services in the amount not to exceed $7,937.72 per month plus any reimbursable expenses and service charges actually incurred and invoiced, for a total contract amount not to exceed $105,252.64.
Staff recommended the renewel with based on past experience, cost and software.
The City Council will next meet on Monday, July 14, at 6:30 p.m.
