HUNTINGTON BEACH Central Library (Flickr/cclark395).

Huntington Beach is one of the few cities in Orange County with its own public library system featuring a landmark main building in the scenic Central Park and four branches.

Faced with the possibility of shuttering three of the branches and cutting hours at the main facility to help close a funding shortfall, supporters of the libraries made their feelings known and the city council backed off from those cuts – mostly – at Monday’s meeting.

Instead, the council decided to make reductions elsewhere, red-penciling $7 million from the 2023-2024 budget.

As a result, the projected $7.4 million deficit has been reduced to $400,000, although there remains a $4.7 million shortfall for 2024-25.

Part of the unbalanced spending came from additional hiring of city employees, including four in the city attorney’s office and others in the police department, as well as the cost of the city’s settlement with the Pacific Air Show, the operators of which sued the city for shutting down the 2021 event one day early because of an oil slick off shore.