Sonoma County Library tax fails to muster enough votes

Supporters of an eighth-cent sales tax to help fund county libraries were surprised and saddened by its defeat, but already are considering the merits of a follow-up measure given it lost by a mere 4,000 votes.

A clear majority of those who voted in Tuesday’s election were in favor of Measure M, which won approval from 62.2 percent, but it was not enough to meet the two-thirds threshold needed under California law for it to pass.

The result is that as much as $100 million that would have been raised over the next decade through what one library commissioner characterized as “just a little, tiny tax” will not materialize, nor will the service, materials and building upgrades for which it would have paid.

Hopes of restoring drastic service cuts made in 2011 are dashed, as well. The 13 Sonoma County Library branches will remain shuttered Mondays and most evenings. All but the central Santa Rosa facility will be closed Sundays, as well.

And while rebounding property values and corresponding tax revenue means the library system can hold steady for the moment, deficits on the horizon suggest a supplemental revenue stream will become increasingly critical, the library’s new director, Brett Lear, said.

“We have to have another funding source for our libraries or we’re looking at further cuts in a few years,” Rohnert Park library commissioner Barbara Mackenzie said. “It’s inevitable.”

The defeat of Measure M, which earned the support of nearly 66,000 voters out of about 106,000 came as a surprise to many supporters, after advance polling indicated it would surpass the margin needed to win. The measure won 65,973 favorable votes. It needed close to 4,000 more.

Among library staffers, the mood Wednesday was somber, said Tony Hoskins, history and genealogy manager for the system.

“We’re all quietly sad,” he said. “But we’re hopeful for the future. We felt that 62 percent was a really good showing.”

Healdsburg library commissioner Paul Grill said he was, frankly, “a little bit shocked” by the measure’s failure, both because of the important role libraries play in literacy and democratic engagement and because the proposed tax was so small: A consumer would need to purchase $8 in taxable merchandise to pay a single cent.

“I would have thought,” Lear said, “that most of our residents thought that helping the library was worth that penny. But again, I think we have to do a better job of showing people the wonderful things that we do now, but also that we are suffering a bit financially.”

“I was cautiously optimistic,” said campaign committee chairman Bruce Horace Robinson of Guerneville, “and I thought that we had a decent chance of passing or reaching the two-thirds majority. So I was disappointed to learn of the results - that we came so close - but it certainly gave me hope for the future that there might be a chance to go forward again.”

The need is clear, he and other supporters said.

Sonoma County’s library system gets about $33 a year in revenue for each resident to fund its roughly $15 million annual budget.

By comparison, per capita library spending in neighboring Napa County is $53, and in Marin County, $95. San Franciscans benefit from library spending equal to $113 per capita.

“We’re like a third world,” Grill said.

But he and other supporters also are aware of a segment of voters that oppose taxes generally, whatever the size or beneficiary.

The campaign was disadvantaged, as well, by the fact that the measure wasn’t approved for the ballot until Aug. 5, leaving volunteers just three months to get their message to the voters with a treasury of zero dollars to start.

“In the short time frame, we did pretty well,” Sebastopol library commissioner Helena Whistler said.

“It was pennies,” Mackenzie said of the proposed tax, “and it’s something that is fundamental to our democratized society, the free flow of information. It’s disappointing from that standpoint.”

The Measure M campaign committee is scheduled to meet today for a postmortem on the election, some analysis on what might have been done differently and whether another sales tax measure might make sense. No decision will be immediate, but there seemed to be a general sense that the idea at least deserved serious consideration.

“At some point in time, if people want that to be an amenity and they want it to be expanded, they need to be willing to dig into their pocketbooks and make it so,” Board of Supervisors Chairman David Rabbitt said. “If not, it will be as it is.”

You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at 521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com.