Friends donate $100K for library materials

By: ADAM KAYE - Staff Writer | Friday, June 1, 2007 12:50 AM PDT ∞

ENCINITAS ---- When the $20 million Encinitas Community Library opens this fall, county officials will have money in the kitty to buy materials for it.
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The Friends of the Encinitas Library donated $100,000 on Thursday to help stock the library; the county has promised to match the gift.

The library group presented a check Thursday to county library Director Jose Aponte and county Supervisor Pam Slater-Price during a ceremony that celebrated the fundraising effort.

"Since most of the money was raised by selling paper- and hardback books," said friends co-President Anne Omsted, "it took a long time."

For that matter, so has the effort to replace the library that once stood on Cornish Drive between D and E streets.

As the new 27,000-square-foot building takes shape, with steel columns supporting long, curving beams, more than a decade's worth of toil and controversy is fading into the background.

Over the past 15 years, the city has convened four special task forces, conducted five site evaluations and commissioned two assessments and one public opinion poll in attempts to find a new home for the library.

In 2002, debate over where to build the facility culminated in a special election in which a majority of voters said to keep the library right where it was.

The old, mustard-colored library was razed three years ago.

The new one ---- which includes a deck with ocean views, a computer lab, children's room, teen center, community room and group study rooms ---- should be finished in October or November, officials say.

On Thursday, about 25 people gathered at Viewpoint Park across from the library site to witness the check donation.

Slater-Price told the crowd that replacing the library was one of her dreams when she served on the Encinitas City Council.

"If we tried to do it sooner and more on the cheap, there would not be the wonderful facility we have now," she said. "This library is a wonderful, iconic presence for the city."

The county of San Diego will operate the facility as one of its branch libraries and Encinitas will maintain the building. About half of the 2.1-acre site belongs to the county.

After she completed her remarks, Slater-Price said she would encourage her colleagues to deed the property to the city.

In addition to its donation, the Friends of the Library is launching a fundraising campaign to purchase materials, Omsted said.

The group's "Legacy Program" provides an avenue for donors to receive naming rights of rooms in exchange for donations.

During his remarks, Aponte acknowledged that Encinitas had waited a long time for its library.

"When you talk about dreams, you have to be a long-distance runner," he said.

To learn more about the Friends of the Encinitas Library, call (760) 753-6970.

Contact staff writer Adam Kaye at (760) 901-4074 or akaye@nctimes.com.

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