AVON — Layoffs and other cuts will “absolutely” be in store for the Avon Branch Library after voters overwhelmingly rejected both a new operating levy for the library and bond issue for a new library.

Issue 7, the levy, was rejected by a vote of 2,128 to 4,095, or 34.2 percent to 65.8 percent of the vote, while Issue 6, the bond issue, failed by a vote of 1,998 to 4,208, or 32.19 percent to 67.81 percent of the vote, according to unofficial election results.

Although the new operating levy appeared tied to the proposed new library in campaign advertising for both issues, it had to be passed even if the bond issue failed because of the loss in state funding for the current library.

Joanne Eldridge, director of the Lorain Public Library System, which operates the Avon Branch Library, said she and her staff did everything they could to make it clear to voters that the two issues were separate, and didn’t want to speculate Tuesday night on why voters roundly rejected both issues.

“I was constantly trying to set the record straight and we had public meeting after public meeting. Opponents came and yelled and lambasted and tried to destroy the credibility of the library – I don’t know why – but they did what they felt they had to do,” she said.

An organized and vocal opposition formed against the library issues, and some people running for council this year used the issues to criticize current government practices.

Eldridge said staff would “absolutely” have to be cut and library officials also will look at reducing library hours and cutting back on materials.

“No doubt about it,” she said about the layoffs.

The entire Lorain Public Library System lost about $1 million in state funding this year, and although Eldridge did not have available Tuesday night how much of that affected the Avon Branch, she said the branch’s current operating levy, which brings in about $400,000 a year, is not enough to maintain current services.

The new operating levy would have raised about $1.75 million per year and cost the owner of a $100,000 home about $70.74 per year. Had just the levy passed, not all of it would have been used to fund the current library. Some of the monies would have been used to fund a proposed new library, which was to be much larger and more modern. Eldridge had said library and city officials would have worked together to figure out what to do with the leftover levy money, which may have meant giving it back in the form of reduced taxes.

Meanwhile, the $10.5 million bond issue for a new library would have been used for construction costs and to purchase land at the new municipal complex off of Detroit Road, next to the new fire and police stations and new post office. It would have cost the owner of a $100,000 home about $31.84 per year.

Voters leaving polling stations Tuesday said they didn’t feel a new library was necessary, especially not in these economic times.

“The library we have is fine,” said one woman, Kimberly, who did not want to provide her last name.

Eldridge had said a new, modern library was needed because the city has outgrown the current facility, which was built in 1994 when the population was only 7,000. The city is now home to nearly 17,000 residents, about the same as Rocky River, which has a 75,000-square-foot library and handles about 1.4 million circulations a year.

Avon currently handles about 250,000 circulations a year, and the library’s population is growing.

Plans for the new library included a children’s area with a train station, town hall and gazebo play areas, a section for teens, a drive-up return area, up to four meeting rooms, a quiet study room, an Internet cafe, more than 30 computers, a small kitchen to serve the cafe and meeting rooms, an after-hours drive-up locker area for patrons who ordered materials but couldn’t get to the library during regular hours, an outside reading garden and a larger collection overall of books, magazines and other library materials.

Contact Adam Wright at 329-7155 or awright@chroniclet.com.

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