In Support of Measure A

The Santa Barbara Public Library Foundation supports charter amendment (Measure A2024) featured on the March 5th ballot. 

In partnership with the Santa Barbara Public Library and the City, the Foundation has been working to revitalize the Library Plaza since 2012. After many years of working through the City Hall approval process and completing a successful 18-month $5 million Capital Campaign, we were thrilled to break ground on the Michael Towbes Library Plaza in July 2022.

Our hope was to open the Plaza in the fall of 2023, but unfortunately the Library is still in the midst of construction, due to numerous avoidable construction problems and delays. As has often been the case in Santa Barbara, the lowest bidder selected to be the contractor for the Plaza project was not local (Los Angeles) and had little experience with the type of construction issues normally facing projects in Santa Barbara. Compounding the problem was a lack of project oversight because of management’s distance from the project. The end result was that the project will end up being significantly behind schedule and vastly over budget because of the number of construction defects that needed to be corrected. Sadly enough, this is an all-too-common tale with City projects which is why Santa Barbara should amend the City Charter (as many other cities in California already have) to allow for “best value” or “design to build” qualifications for the consideration of future construction projects. 

We are aiming for a 2024 opening and invite the community to stay posted for what is expected to be a major community celebration. We want to emphasize that no additional donor dollars will be necessary to complete the project, and our aspiration is that no other City project will have to face the challenges currently experienced by the Library.

The Library Foundation has learned the hard lesson that the lowest-bid process of awarding building contracts is NOT in the public’s best interest as this formulation produces too many change orders and overcharges. 

We support a “best value” formulation in awarding construction contracts and urge Santa Barbarans to vote yes.

Lauren Trujillo, Foundation Director
On behalf of the Santa Barbara Public Library Foundation