GILROY
– One month after the March 2 election, county library campaign
officials are trying to figure out why their bid for funding was
unsuccessful.
GILROY – One month after the March 2 election, county library campaign officials are trying to figure out why their bid for funding was unsuccessful.
For Gilroy – the city that tallied the least support in the county for the parcel tax called Measure B – officials already may know why.
County Head Librarian Melinda Cervantes says the dredging up of the years-old Internet pornography filtering issue may have been a factor for many voters in this conservative town.
“When you’re trying to get two-thirds approval, any amount of negativity can make it real tough,” Cervantes said. “There were other challenges countywide, but the running dialogue about Internet filtering surely affected things in Gilroy. I don’t remember seeing an article in any other paper.”
In Gilroy, only three of 16 precincts supported the library with 66 percent of the vote. One precinct, situated along Mantelli Drive west of Santa Teresa Boulevard and north of Hecker Pass, failed to garner even 50 percent of the vote.
Overall, 61 percent of county voters supported the measure that would have continued a $33.66 parcel tax and increased it to $42.
Dispatch columnist Cynthia Walker endorsed a no vote on the measure, claiming the passage of the parcel tax would “strengthen the library, so that it can continue to ignore the parents and taxpayers who want no porn for kids in our public libraries.”Jodi Engle 4/1/04 Is there a clearer way to say this?
Her comments triggered responses from fellow columnists and readers who wrote letters to the editor before the election. It also led to at least one instance where a library patron observed Internet users for an extended period of time to see if anyone was viewing pornography.
“We were a little incredulous about the whole thing,” Gilroy head librarian Lani Yoshimura said. “We may have some people still doing it silently, but my real sense is people honor other people’s privacy.”
For library supporters, the comments in the newspaper were not only untimely, they were baseless.
“There was a great deal of discussion about this a number of years ago and it was put into a resolution that all of our libraries implemented,” Cervantes said. “It’s a little mystifying.”
The Santa Clara County library system uses pornography filters on all of its computers. The filtering program cannot be removed from computers in children’s areas, but can be turned off on computers in the regular computer section of libraries.
In addition, the placement of computer monitors under see-through desktops makes it harder for patrons to see what another patron is viewing.
By April 25, the county library board of directors will decide not whether, but when to ask voters for additional support. The earliest such a bond measure could reach the ballot would be June 2005, during a special election.
The board also could wait until November 2005, but putting off the vote by five months would delay revenue. Essentially, the board must decide if the earlier but costlier special election is worth the risk.
Time is of the essence for the library system because it will lose 21 percent of its funding once the existing parcel tax expires in June 2005.
Money issues for the county library system already are an issue, however.
Cervantes said the board would set its 2004-05 budget this coming June. The budget will have to be formulated without millions of dollars from the state, and cuts in hours and staffing are expected.
“We have a $3.6 million problem already next year,” Cervantes said.
Cervantes said the library will try to make patrons more aware of its online resources in the coming months, so patrons are less impacted when the libraries close earlier than normal.
“We want people to know there are ways of accessing our system, placing reserves and doing research without necessarily going into a library,” Cervantes said. “In many cases, you’re getting the whole text of a journal, a periodical or other media online.”
For more information, log onto: www.santaclaracountylibrary.org.
