MV Teens Spared from $80 County Library Card Fee

Pay $80 a year for a library card? Los Altos Library and its counterparts in the county library system will ask patrons living outside their cities to do just that starting July 1. With one exception.

On Thursday, the Joint Powers Authority Board, in response to public outcry, voted unanimously to exempt students who attend schools whose districts overlap with the boundaries of the Santa Clara County Library District.

That means, students attending schools within the Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District will get free library cards for one year to Los Altos Library, good for five checked out items and computer access. It also applies to Mountain View residents who live inside the .

But students who attend schools in the Mountain View Whisman School District will likely not.

The decision includes preschool through 12th grade and includes private schools within the county library district.

A discussion about whether to extend the eligibility of the students to include the college level was shot down, because community colleges, such as Foothill and Mission have their own libraries. 

Los Altos Hills Councilmember Jean Mordo, advocated expanding the student definition to include college students, and even abolish the geographical boundaries.

"In the spirit of trying to reduce work and simplify" it would be easier if library staff didn't have to verify each application from a non-resident, he said.

But above all, he said he wanted to abolish the $80 library card decision that the board approved at their meeting in April. Not only will non-residents not be able to check out items without paying a flat annual $80 fee, they won't have access to computers or the wireless internet either.

The decision to charge is "against the principle of a public library," said Mordo, who sits on the Joint Powers Authority Board. "It should be free. Period." 

It's pathetic, unneighborly, nasty, and "will come back to bite us," he said.

With the library card fee, the county library system forgoes state reimbursement, which County Librarian Melinda Cervantes said has been going downhill in the last decade.

The state reimburses the libraries for each item checked out by outside patrons, but the money has dwindled to 15 cents per item. The actual cost to the library is $3 per item.

Charging, however, is expected to recover an estimated $240,000. Out of the 43 percent of non-residents the system serves, only 2 percent are expected to shell out the $80. With the student exemptions, the revenue is estimated to go down to $208,000.

Library Services Director Rosanne Macek of the  has said she expects some of the 9,300 Mountain View residents who use the Los Altos library to return to the city-run Mountain View Library.

The Mountain View library belongs to a consortium called the Pacific Library Partnership of libraries funded, in the most part, by the general funds of their cities. The Santa Clara County Library system funds, administers and manages the libraries in Los Altos, Milpitas, Campbell, Gilroy, Morgan Hill, Saratoga and Cupertino.

But while Mountain View residents would have to pay to use county library services, that wouldn't be the case for county library cardholders who use the MVPL.

"The MVPL is not obligated to provide services to Santa Clara County residents," said Macek. "But we are not going to charge or deny service. We'll wait and see."

Mordo said the Los Altos Library would look for a way to pay for the cards for non-Los Altos residents.

The funds Los Altos provides the county library system through its property taxes currently subsidizes other libraries, he said. If we were to leave, he said, our [own library] budget would increase by 36 percent.

–Claudia Cruz contributed to this article.