Council committee directs expansion of library cooling centers, orders feasibility report

Los Angeles City Council committee members voted to expand a pilot program that uses public libraries as cooling centers during extreme heat and instructed city staff to report back on feasibility, staffing and funding.

The committee approved a motion directing the City Administrative Officer (CAO), the City Librarian (Los Angeles Public Library), the Chief Heat Officer and the Climate Emergency Mobilization Office (CEMO) to prepare a feasibility analysis on necessary staffing and existing funding to support a phased expansion of the pilot. The committee also directed CEMO and the CAO to pursue federal and state grants and added three more library locations for heat season 2025, bringing the pilot’s planned total to eight sites. Councilmembers Nazarian, Raman and Padilla voted aye; two members were absent and the motion passed.

The motion responded to a presentation from Martha Segura, the city’s chief heat officer and director of the Climate Emergency Mobilization Office, who said the pilot opened five libraries in summer 2024 to serve as places of refuge on extreme-heat days. “Over that period, the five libraries were open on Sundays,” Segura said, and the pilot tracked Sunday usage to test demand. Segura said the office had proposed adding three regional libraries and training and supplies for librarians to operate as cooling centers.

Segura said the pilot was launched quickly in 2024 without a dedicated budget to gather data before the heat season and to support a broader plan to apply for state climate bond funds. She described the health risks of extreme heat in Los Angeles and said the city had been awarded planning funds from the governor’s Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation to develop a heat action and resilience plan that could support future infrastructure funding requests.

Rafael Garcia, a budget analyst in the Office of the City Administrative Officer assigned to the libraries, told the committee that any instructions with potential costs should be reported through the annual budget process given current fiscal constraints. Joyce Cooper, director of branches for the Los Angeles Public Library, said the library system can track door counts but that distinguishing people using libraries as cooling centers from normal patrons is difficult during regular weekday hours; the pilot focused on Sundays because attendance is easier to isolate.

During questioning, committee members pressed for clearer usage data and outreach. Segura said the pilot tracked 27 Sundays and reported that 3,537 people used the sites on tracked Sundays; she also said separately that the pilot measured “on average, 31 people” at the pilot libraries on extreme-heat Sundays. Library staff and CEMO said that discrepancy reflected differing baselines in the pilot’s preliminary tracking and that a refined data collection plan is needed.

The committee’s written instructions include: (1) a feasibility analysis of staffing and funding for a phased expansion; (2) a requirement that SEMO/CEMO and the CAO seek federal and state grants to offset costs; (3) the addition of three library cooling centers for a total of eight sites focused on disadvantaged and high-heat neighborhoods (the motion named Sun Valley and Van Nuys branches and a South Los Angeles site as possible additions); and (4) outreach and promotion to notify residents that libraries serve as cooling centers during extreme heat.

Segura and library staff described an estimated supply budget the presentation listed as $45,000 for five libraries and said, if extrapolated to eight sites, the cost would be about $80,000 (the presentation also characterized the per-library season cost as roughly $10,000; the committee asked staff to confirm a precise budget in the requested feasibility report). Committee members and staff discussed using philanthropic partners and existing departmental outreach channels to promote the program and noted that many federal and state funding streams (including FEMA and the state climate bond program) could be pursued to support expansion.

The committee’s action is intended as a near-term, low-cost heat-mitigation strategy that leverages existing facilities, while the administration completes a broader heat action and resilience plan. The committee asked for the feasibility report and funding analysis to return to committee for further consideration ahead of the 2025 heat season.