United in children reading

Costa Mesa Councilwoman Wendy Leece and her ex-rival Tom Egan, who snagged her seat on the school board eight years ago, have become allies in a campaign to promote literacy.

They are working together to help schoolchildren, especially those on the city’s Westside, do better in school and contribute to society.

Leece and Egan, who is a board member of the Costa Mesa Library Foundation, are teaming up to give kids access to books, as well as raise awareness about the need for a central library in Costa Mesa.

The city has donated land for a central library on Fair Drive, but there’s no money to build it.

“We are trying to little by little build interest in books for kids and connecting them to libraries,” Leece said.

She and Egan used to be political adversaries. Leece sat on the Newport-Mesa Unified School District board from 1998 to 2002, when Egan ran against her and won. Egan left the board in 2006.

For the past few months, the duo has toured after-school programs in the city to find a way to give kids access to library books.

Costa Mesa has three library branches — Donald Dungan, Mesa Verde and Costa Mesa Technology Library — that are part of the Orange County Library System.

The technology library is a computer lab. However, both Leece and Egan argue that Costa Mesa is populous enough for a fourth county library branch.

“A lot of kids probably don’t know that we have three branch libraries,” Leece said. “I think we’re just trying to get the awareness of the need for a library up above the radar.”

Toward that end, Leece, who is also a member of the Orange County Library Advisory Board, and Egan came up with the idea of supplying book carts to after-school programs such as MIKA Community Development Corporation, THINK Together and Save Our Youths, so that kids could check out books, take them home and read them. There are about 15 after-school programs throughout the city.

Egan said book carts are a safe way for kids to have access to libraries while reaping the benefits of reading .

Last year, Leece and Egan came up with the same program, which they then wanted to put on a mobile recreation van operated by the city. But right before the program came to fruition, the city cut funding for the van.

Leece and Egan started from the beginning, but with the same goal.

The next step is for Egan to go back to the library foundation board and ask for support to bring book carts to students in after-school programs.

“My prime concern as a citizen is to make my city better, and part of that is helping the younger generation be better, be more competitive,” he said. “The older I get, the more I’m convinced that I’ve got to give back to the next generation.”