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On Thursday, April 26 the regular 5:00 meeting of the City of Fullerton Library Board of Trustees will include an update on the Hunt Library facility by Library Director Judy Booth. The meeting will take place in the board room room of the main branch of the Fullerton Public Library located at 353 W. Commonwealth Ave.
Updates about the Hunt Branch should be of interest to anyone interested in ensuring that the closed facility remains in the pubic realm instead of being sold off to fill the deficit of the city’s mismanaged budget.
Two Fullerton City Councilmembers speaking about the closed Hunt Branch Library on August 15, 2017:
“With a partnership with some local groups, non-profits, we might be able to keep it as an asset and make it available to the public.” — Jesus Silva
“I favor selling it.” — Doug Chaffee
Matthew Leslie
The Hunt Branch of the Fullerton Public Library became the topic of a brief discussion by members of the Fullerton City Council last Tuesday night during a budget update from City Manager Ken Domer. Noting a line in the budget about the below market rate currently paid by mega-church Grace Ministries International (GMI) to lease the property, located adjacent to their church, Councilmember Jesus Silva asked for a workshop to discuss opportunities in which local non-profits might use the closed library to benefit the community instead.
“I know we don’t have the funding to operate it ourselves, the city,” Mr. Silva said, “but maybe with a partnership with some local groups, non-profits, we might be able to keep it as an asset and make it available to the public.”
Mr. Silva’s suggestion that the landmark structure donated to the city by Norton Simon in 1962 might once again be made available to the public was too much for Mayor pro tem Doug Chaffee, who immediately responded by saying that there was no need for such a workshop, and “I favor selling it.”
The Hunt Branch Library, given to Fullerton by Norton Simon in 1962, now leased to a neighboring megachurch for private use for less than the cost of a two bedroom apartment. Image from OC Register, used without permission.
The Hunt Branch Library, is a mid-century modernist gem designed by world famous architect William Pereira. It was operated as a branch of the Fullerton Public Library for five decades, serving generations of Fullertonians, until successive city councils began routinely underfunding it.
Following budget cutbacks that led to the library being mostly closed all for but two days a week, the facility was closed entirely in 2013 because library staff felt unsafe due to the presence of a sizable homeless camp that developed (enabled by the city who provided portable toilets and regular visits from the four Fullerton Police Homeless Liaison Officers) along the railroad tracks directly behind it. Not long after its closure, the council approved a month-to-month lease of the 4,500 square foot library and the surrounding property to GMI for $1,500.00 per month—less than the cost of a two bedroom apartment in Fullerton. No competitive bids were sought by the city in advance of this agreement.
Left to right: GMI’s 2008 sanctuary building, Norton Simon’s Hunt office building, the Hunt Library.
Four years later, the Hunt Branch is still closed to the public and is still being leased far below market value, but the homeless camp that was the stated cause for its closure has long since been removed by the city–“cleaned out” so that an agreement to lease the property could be approved by the council.
Meanwhile, the city council has rejected requests from the public to consider appropriate funding to the Fullerton Public Library to enable the operation of the Hunt as a second library branch for a city of 140,000 people. Awaiting a budget for the branch, the Fullerton Public Library Board of Trustees has held off on presenting a long term plan that would define unique uses to complement the Main Library branch while also serving the southwest quadrant of the city as a library resource.
The prospect of selling off the Hunt Library might be attractive to anyone hoping to partially stave off the looming financial deficiencies facing Fullerton in the next five years, as reported by staff during the city’s 2017-2018 budget hearings. However, one has to wonder just how much money Doug Chaffee thinks the city can get for a building that is so devalued by this council that they rent it monthly for a mere $ 1,500.00.
The Hunt’s value might increase dramatically, however, if none of the promised historical protections were delivered, allowing a new owner to tear it down and use the property for something else entirely. With nothing to legally prevent the building from being razed or significantly altered, a much larger and different structure might be built on the sight.
If Doug Chaffee has his way, and the Hunt Branch Library is sold, the public will lose not only a valued public library in an underserved part of the city, but also a priceless part of the Fullerton’s history, with nothing in place to protect a unique building that once showcased sculpture by Giacometti and Rodin, and served as an emblem of commitment to a community and it’s future.
The Hunt Branch Library once served Fullerton’s families, but is now a hostage to the city’s impending budget shortfall.
Your public library, closed indefinitely. Will it be funded by the Fullerton City Council, or sold off as surplus property?
Matthew Leslie
The Early March edition of the Fullerton Observer (End or Reopening of Hunt Branch Library?) reports that The Fullerton Public Library Board of Trustees met on February 25, and voted to recommend to the City Council that the Hunt Branch Library either be funded with $ 1.3 million for annual operations or be considered surplus property. Grace Ministries International (GMI) has been leasing the facility for the less-than-princely sum of $ 1,500.00 per month since its abrupt closure in 2013 amidst reports that library staffers did not feel safe so near the then-burgeoning homeless encampment nearby.
According to the Fullerton Observer account, it was none other than retired City Manager Chris Meyer who first proposed selling the library at the Thursday meeting, in response to the city council’s past failure to fund it. The suggestion came during a discussion of an agenda item to provide direction about the Hunt’s future, now that GMI’s lease period is expiring. Rag readers will recall that it was Chris Meyer himself who wrote to this very blog nearly three years ago to repudiate the notion that the Hunt would be permanently closed, and eventually sold. (The Beginning of the End of the Hunt?)
At that time, Mr. Meyer suggested that the Hunt could be utilized to provide a “wide range of services, including a library, and media access center, and whatever the community needs. It is my belief that after the homeless issue at the branch is addressed, and the City’s budget recovers, there will be an opportunity for a renaissance of the facility, and the adjacent park,” he wrote. Mr. Meyer’s attempts to reassure Rag readers concluded with the admonition that, “This is not the beginning of the end, but rather the start of a new, and much more diverse role for Hunt in the southwest community.”
Three years on, Mr. Meyer’s turnabout position to sell a public library he formerly predicted would enjoy a “renaissance” might not even result in a public sale of the facility, however, because current City Manager Joe Felz, who once served as Mr. Meyer’s assistant, is reported to have suggested that the city should “sole source” the sale of the Hunt to the church directly. “They (GMI) have been accommodating by inviting people to see the architecture,” he is reported to have said in the Observer.
As the Rag noted in its last story, despite assurances from City Hall that the William Pereira designed Hunt library would be the subject of an historic preservation designation, no such protection for the facility has been achieved in the nearly three years since the library was closed. City Manager Joe Felz seems to think that GMI, who continue to lease the property, should now be offered the purchase of the library exclusive of any other buyers. This brazenly proffered triple foul would not only permanently rob the people of Fullerton of a public library, but add insult to injury by selling the mid-century architectural gem with no legal assurances that it wouldn’t be torn down, and without even offering it to the highest bidder.
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