Council subcommittee questions library mental health hire
With $28 million in a library set-aside account, council members ask whether a proposed outreach worker duplicates Boys and Girls Club services.
City officials say they have delayed hiring experts to consider expansion of the Malibu Library because they were tied up dealing with the aftermath of the Palisades Fire.
City council members have been wanting to see alternatives for either revamping the existing library at the Civic Center, replacing it with a new facility somewhere downtown, or building a second facility of some sort at Point Dume — or some combination of the three.
$28 million has accumulated in the Malibu Library set-aside account. That money is property tax money, held in an account controlled by LA County's library system.
In a normal city, the city runs the libraries. But LA County has refused to hand control over the Malibu Library over to the city, 35 years after we incorporated.
Members of the council's library subcommittee met this week to go over the library's proposed budget, drawn up by the county. Halynn Conrad and Marianne Riggins questioned why the library wants to spend $150,000 on a mental health outreach worker.
They said the Boys and Girls Club of Malibu is also asking for city funding for mental health outreach. Is there overlap? Who is in charge?
The entire matter goes to the city council later this year.