County Budget Keeps Most Services, but Clinic Closures Loom : Spending: Libraries, lifeguards and parks were spared the worst, yet funding cuts will have an impact on quality of life.

For weeks, Los Angeles County lifeguards worried about a possible rise in drownings if the county followed through with plans to withdraw lifeguard services on nine of the county’s beaches, including Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach, Hermosa Beach, and White’s Point in San Pedro.

Librarians braced themselves for the closing of five branches from Carson to Lennox. Recreation directors feared that three South Bay parks would be shut down, and that all county pools would be drained empty. Residents protested the possibility of closing the sheriff’s Lomita station.

But when the County Board of Supervisors passed a $13.5-billion budget on Thursday, the future didn’t look so bad for county services in the South Bay. Libraries, parks and most beaches were spared from the worst of the cuts, and no facilities will be shut down.

“Thank God we will not be closed,” said Evaughan Boatwright, activities director at Hawthorne’s Bodger Park, a county-run park once targeted for closure, along with Del Aire Park in Hawthorne and Friendship Park in San Pedro. “These kids won’t be put on the streets and they won’t get involved with the wrong crowds.”

Although there was relief that budget cuts were not as severe as predicted, many services will probably be funded at lower levels.

Here’s a look at some areas that fared better than expected:

Parks and Recreation

Supervisors saved all of the county’s parks from closing by restoring $8.2 million to the budget, but that is not enough to keep all of the recreation activities going. Parks and Recreation officials are uncertain which programs will be scaled back.

At Bodger Park, Boatwright fears there will be significant cuts in its summer day-camp program, where kids spend their free time swimming, painting and hiking. The program also provides summer jobs to teen-agers, who work as counselors.

“I’m going to pray to God to please let it stay,” Boatwright said. “It’s just sad what the adults take from the kids.”

On Friday, she passed out lunches of roast beef sandwiches and bananas to some of the 150 kids who live near the park, which includes a baseball diamond, playground equipment and a vegetable garden.

“Some of these kids would go without eating if they didn’t have this,” she said. “It’s a healthy meal.”

Parks and Recreation officials also expect to have to trim from cultural and sports programs, as well as special events.

Libraries

Five of the South Bay’s 11 county-run libraries were slated to be closed, but they were saved when supervisors put an additional $3.5 million in the budget for libraries.

Services, however, will be radically cut. The Hermosa Beach, Lawndale and Lennox libraries, along with Victoria Park Library in Carson and the Wiseburn Library in Hawthorne, will be open just twice a week. The Hermosa Beach library is now open five days a week, and the others are open four days a week.

Gustavo Garcia, 24, an English major at El Camino Community College, was shocked to find out that the Lawndale library is cutting its hours.

“That’s terrible,” he said. “We come here about three times a week because sometimes we need stuff for school and this is the closest library. It’s too bad. It’s going to be a big deal for us.”

County Librarian Sandra Reuben said that the impact of the budget cuts will be widespread.

“We will still have a tough year, because we still will not be able to buy books and materials,” Reuben said.

“I want people to understand this is a temporary reprieve for those libraries,” she added.

Reuben also faces laying off 500 library employees, although she did not know how many in the South Bay would lose their jobs. And the new budget didn’t include funds to reopen several other libraries, including the Manhattan Heights Library in Manhattan Beach, that were closed last year.

Lifeguards

Although the supervisors voted to restore $2.2 million in funding for lifeguards on state-owned beaches, emergency services will be radically curtailed. Currently the lifeguards respond to emergencies round-the-clock. But under the new budget, emergency teams will be on watch just 10 hours a day.

The supervisors also decided to withdraw lifeguard services from Hermosa Beach as of Sept. 7, forcing the city to either contract with the state for lifeguard services or provide its own protection. The supervisors voted 4-1 Thursday to stop guarding Hermosa Beach after the city, which owns the beach, refused to pick up any of the costs.

To generate revenue estimated at $80,000 a year, county officials had hoped the city would allow them to erect sun shelters on its beach. The revenue would have been derived from the sale of advertising space on the structures. But city officials, who contend they already provide substantial subsidies to the county, say the terms of the 1901 deed that gave them possession of the beach prohibit them from allowing any structures on it.

“It’s outrageous and totally irresponsible of the county--especially when they know we recently had to cut our budget 20%,” Hermosa Beach City Councilman Sam Y. Edgerton said.

He defended the City Council’s decision opposing county marketing plans on the beach.

“They want to turn every beach into a Coney Island for their own private marketing schemes,” Edgerton said. “We don’t like that stuff anyway and we don’t want the county telling us what they can build or operate on our beach.”

For those beaches spared the loss of county lifeguard services, news of the county’s new budget was the first bright spot in weeks of worry. Beaches that had been in danger of losing lifeguard services included Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach and White’s Point in San Pedro.

“After all the gloom and doom it was so nice to wake up and have a nice sunny day for a change,” said Lt. Mike Cunningham, who supervises lifeguard services in the South Bay. “Nice in more ways than one.”

Law Enforcement and Fire Protection

County officials had considered converting the Lomita sheriff’s station into a satellite facility that would be closed to the public but available to deputies for refueling their cruisers and other incidental tasks. Deputies were optimistic the station would stay open after learning only 2% was trimmed from the sheriff’s budget, rather than the 16% that had been proposed.

If the station had closed, patrol duties for Lomita and Palos Verdes peninsula cities would have been handled from the Carson station, possibly reducing response times.

Although deputies must wait until Tuesday to get official word, one sheriff’s official said the chance that the station would be closed was “a moot question.”

At the Lennox station, Capt. Jack Scully said he was relieved that the sheriff’s budget would not face drastic cuts. An unspecified number of deputies would have been cut from his staff, and the popular bicycle patrol program was almost certain to go.

“I don’t think I’m going to take any cuts in personnel,” Scully said.

Times staff writers Kim Kowsky and Carol Chastang and correspondent Gordon Dillow contributed to this story.