O.C. Supervisor Janet Nguyen spoke to the members of the Wilshire Square Neighborhood Association this week and she discussed how the City of Santa Ana could go about signing up with the Orange County Library system. You can watch a video of her presentation at Santa Ana Insight.
It turns out that Orange County Libraries are based on the population in a city. Garden Grove and Costa Mesa each have three County Libraries, and they each a fraction of the Santa Ana population.
Additionally, Orange County property taxes pay for the Orange County Library System vs. the General Fund used by the City of Santa Ana.
The process for turning over the Santa Ana system to the County of Orange includes:
- The Santa Ana City Council must approve the decision to convert from City Library System to the Orange County Library System.
- The City needs to present the request to join the Orange County Library System to the Orange County Library Committee (made up of the 24 Cities in the Orange County Library System).
- When the Orange County Library Committee approves the request of the City to join the Orange County Library System, it is presented to the Orange County Board of Supervisors for approval.
Santa Ana residents clearly stand to gain by going to the County system, as we would no doubt end up with four to six libraries.
However, what if the cities on the O.C. Library Committee say no, because of fears that the City of Santa Ana will absorb too much of the O.C. library budget? That is a good question.
In my opinion, the entire county is at risk if we don’t do something about Santa Ana. Consider that:
- Crime will continue to rise in Santa Ana, and spill over to other cities in the area, if we don’t act now to improve English fluency and literacy.
- The workforce will also be a huge issue. Employers need folks that can speak English. More libraries = higher English fluency. Employers throughout Orange County need the workers that live in Santa Ana.
- The image of the County of Orange itself is at risk. Santa Ana is the County Seat. Can we really afford to NOT improve the local library system? Besides, shouldn’t the County Seat be PART of the County library system?
- It is the right thing to do.
I urge the members of the Santa Ana City Council to move on this ASAP. We have a Supervisor in Janet Nguyen who will champion this cause. She already knows all of the Santa Ana City Council Members (see picture above). We have a population at risk This needs to be one of our top priorities.
Sounds like an awesome idea!
The idiot she is sitting next to spent 6 years doing nothing about the state of the libraries or school in Santa Ana.This needs to be on the next council agenda or it’s proof that this mayor and council just don’t give a damn.
Hallelujah. Janet has figured out how to get more libraries for us. What is the next step? Does she formally propose this to the SA City Council? With Janet as our new Supervisor she is clearly demonstrating “SI SE PUEDE”.
Great idea! I love it but here is the problem. The Santa Ana employees Union will fight it tooth and nail because they hate to lose dues paying members. The employees Union owns Sal and Michele and the majority of the council and would never let this go through. Good idea though!
Santa Ana Employees Union can just become a part of OCEA like the Librarians would be a part of. OCEA is better.
Janet is trying to backpeddle on all her latino bashing by dangling a library on a stick. Thats pretty pathetic. We latinos dont forget these Tan Nguyen candidates and we are going to throw her out on her ear come next election.
This would be an excellent move for Santa Ana. It would indicate progress in doing the right things over the old ways of doing nothing and letting the city stagnate.
Why are other governmental agencies always bailing out Santa Ana? They will just take thier general fund windfall and blow it on someother dumb program instead of investing back into infrastructure improvement.
How many of Santa Ana
Does a city in which high numbers of children drop out of school and read poorly to not at all (unless, of course, something is written in graffti-speak)really need more libraries? Is this a need, or a trophy hunt for the elite?
There is a MAJOR flaw in Janet and Pedroza’s plan.
The county has no money to construct any additional libraries in Santa Ana, and does not have the funds to staff any new libraries at all. Although Santa Ana’s share of library dedicated property tax would transfer to the county, it would be insufficient to make up the deficit that any new libraries would cause on the system. Hence, the cities in the system will either force Santa ana to offset any deficit out of their city general fund, or not allow Santa ana to join.
Janet needs to go to school on fiscal reality before she starts making pronmises she can’t keep.
Janet, Don’t listen to the haters girl! They will always try to tell you what you cannot do. Keep hope alive!
I saw the video. She never made any promise. She was responding to a request for more information. What is wrong with empowering knowledge to the voters?