It’s been exactly three months since the city council voted
unanimously to place the $37 million library bond on the ballot,
hours after the Dow Jones Industrial closed at 11,656 points.
It’s been exactly three months since the city council voted unanimously to place the $37 million library bond on the ballot, hours after the Dow Jones Industrial closed at 11,656 points.
The average closed below 8,200 points Monday, and as families watch their retirement savings evaporate and their home values continue to decline, the idea of shelling out $24 per $100,000 of property value each year until 2040 can seem more onerous.
“People are still losing their homes, and folks obviously can’t afford to pay anything more, not even a tenth of a cent,” said Susan Hamilton, a 15-year resident and home school parent who has opposed Measure F along with conservative activist Mark Zappa.
Hamilton described their anti-F efforts as “more grassroots” than the pro-F crowd, which includes Library4Gilroy, the city’s Library Commission and Voz de la Gente, another community group with deep ties in the Latino community. The anti-F group, backed by the Silicon Valley Taxpayers’ Association, has relied more on word of mouth and “financial common sense” rather than actual money and mailers, Hamilton said.
“I actually find that most people I talk to have the same point of view,” Hamilton said.
Library4Gilroy, on the other hand, has raised $30,000 since August, according to Co-Chair and former Gilroy City Administrator Jay Baksa. Plus, he said, the 15-member steering committee he sits on has spent hundreds of hours sending out mailers, walking neighborhoods, calling residents and assembling an array of supporters found on its Web site, www.library4gilroy.com.
“Some people say, ‘Hey, the cost is just too tough,’ or that their house is in foreclosure, and we respect that – What can you say? But there hasn’t been any philosophical opposition to a new library,” Baksa said, adding that the down economy hasn’t siphoned off any “Yes” votes, “but, boy, a lot of undecideds have popped up.”
That skews the survey results the council heard from a pollster in August, that a new library stands a 50-50 chance of passing. The pro-F group then heard that it would be an “uphill battle,” but Baksa said the heartfelt effort that has ensued has encouraged him in ways he never imagined.
“This has been one of the highlights of my public career. I have just been floored, positively, with how many people are supportive and volunteering, and I’m not talking about businesses and high-profile people,” Baksa said, though the list of Measure F supporters does include developers, teachers, emergency personnel and some of Gilroy’s locally and federally elected officials.
“I’m being personally enriched by all this,” Baksa said. “It makes me feel good. Democracy is working, but whether it passes or not, we’ll find out.”
It’s been 42 years since voters passed a bond to build the city’s cramped, leaky library. Passing a bond requires at least two-thirds voter support, and the anti-F crowd is still going up against at least 41 percent of voters who said they would “definitely vote yes” for the library bond, according to a $20,000 survey conducted by Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin & Associates during the middle of July. It was the second such survey since January, and it rehashed nearly the same results.
But many things have changed since the middle of July.
“The economy has certainly taken a turn for the worse. People are understandably feeling more insecurity, and this measure will cost anybody who owns land,” Councilman Perry Woodward said. “But I still think it is in the community’s best interest to pass this despite the cost because the cost is spread pretty wide across the community, and there’s no question that we need a better library facility … Plus, there is no Plan B. We’ll either have to close the library (because it is not seismically safe) or spend millions in deferred maintenance.”
Turning to Sacramento is also not an option.
Gilroy turned to the capital three times for state library construction funds between 2002 and 2004. The state had $350 million to dole out for library renovations after Californians approved Proposition 14 in 2000, but other areas with no libraries or severely outdated facilities received the money, and then Gov. Schwarzenegger cut state library funding by about $15 million in August 2007 to tighten the budget.
Back on the local level, Woodward has donated $250 to the pro-F effort, but between being the Gilroy Unified School District Candidate Mark Good’s treasurer and dealing with the future of Gilroy Gardens and the city’s ballooning budget deficit, he said he has not devoted “nearly enough time” to the library bond as he would have liked.
A recent hip injury has prevented Council Dion Bracco from knocking on doors, but he said he planned to rally this weekend and also make phone calls. He added that he has also donated money to the cause, but declined to say how much because he had yet to inform his wife.
There are some in the Library4Gilroy group that spend eight hours a day promoting the bond measure. This includes Bob Sigala, a local retiree with union ties who used to work for Rebekah Children’s Services and now serves on the city’s Parks and Recreation Commission.
Sigala did not return messages Monday, but Baksa praised him, among others, for their tireless efforts.
“If we didn’t have Bob Sigala, I don’t know where we’d be,” Baksa said.
For the city’s part, it hired the Lew Edwards group in June for $83,000 to get the word out. The group has sent out three mailers, held meetings with community groups and commissioned the most recent survey. Councilmen Perry Woodward and Craig Gartman voted against hiring Lew Edwards in June because they said it amounted to spending city money on inappropriate advocacy, but the two joined the 7-0 vote to place the measure on the ballot.
A representatives of the consultant told the council in August that the pro-F community groups would need about $60,000 and about 50 volunteers to help win the battle, but Sigala disagreed at the time, and Baksa said Monday that the $30,000 and “enormous heart” have given the group confidence.
“We’re still feeling good,” Baksa said.
By the numbers
-16,226: Number of voters in Gilroy
-66: Percent of voters likely to approve library bond measure
-50: Percent of voters likely to approve bond after considering increased property taxes
-2/3: Fraction of voters necessary to pass a bond
-75: Percent of Democrats (49 percent of Gilroy’s electorate) who support bond
-79: Percent of Latinos (33 percent of Gilroy’s electorate) who support bond
-70: Percent of voters between 18 and 29 who support bond
-71: Percent of women voters (54 percent of Gilroy’s voters) who support bond
Source: July 2008 survey of 400 voters by Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin & Associates, 5% margin of error.
