The Huntington Beach City Council will consider whether to privatize its public library system on Tuesday.
Maryland-based Library Systems & Services, a for-profit company that runs libraries throughout the country, has offered to take over operations for the city's five library branches. The agenda item for Tuesday’s meeting, introduced by Interim City Manager Eric Parra, says contracting with LS&S would bring “substantial annual cost savings for the city.”
But Carol Daus from the nonprofit Friends of the Huntington Beach Public Library says the proposal is very concerning, especially with the current climate of book-banning across the country.
Last June, the Huntington Beach City Council’s Republican majority voted to create a panel to screen for “obscene” or “pornographic” books at the public library and restrict access to those books for minors. The privatization effort could grant LS&S control over the library’s collection, which Daus said might open the door to further restrictions.
“I don’t know if that's the plan for some of these more conservative cities to have greater control,” Daus said. “You would think, well, they’re giving it to another company, but if they write the contract in the way they want to write it, they can conceivably have control in many ways.”
LS&S operates libraries in Riverside County, Simi Valley, Escondido, and Palmdale. The company also received a contract to take over three library branches in Santa Clarita in 2010, pledging to save the city $1 million a year in part by firing unionized employees.
The Santa Clarita City Council voted unanimously to end LS&S’s contract in 2018, finding that operating the libraries independently at the same staffing level would actually save the city almost $400,000 in the next fiscal year.
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A state law passed in 2011 prevents cities privatizing library operations from agreeing to contracts that would cause employees to lose their job, wages, benefits or hours.
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