Admit it: You were stunned, too. Not by the proposal itself -- putting a new Escondido public library on the grounds of the city's arts center campus makes a certain amount of sense, after all. No, what took you by surprise was the fact that the idea came from City Councilman Sam Abed, whose past proposals have mostly involved trying to drive the poor out of town.

Still, no matter where it came from, the fact remains that it's one of the most creative (well, creative in a positive way) ideas to come out of the Escondido City Council in a long time.

And while the naysayers were immediately in full voice, including a majority of Abed's fellow council members, the library trustees -- the folks charged with running our local public library -- feel the idea is worth exploring.

So do I.

Would the existing California Center for the Arts, Escondido Museum and education wing provide enough space for a new library?

Perhaps, although the critics say no. But the library trustees point out that a new library need not be as large as previously planned, that the tremendous advances in reference sources on the Internet is lessening the need for physically storing books and periodicals. (And let's face it -- a reference book is outdated the minute it comes off the press.)

But we won't know for sure whether the arts center could host a new public library, or how much renovation might be needed, until and unless a majority of City Council members authorize a study -- and so far, only Olga Diaz has endorsed Abed's proposal.

It says here that the other three -- Mayor Lori Holt Pfeiler and council member Dick Daniels and Marie Waldron -- owe it to the city's residents to at least look into the idea.

The arts center has been a financial drain on the city's budget, and nobody has yet come up with a way to fully integrate that beautiful campus into the city's cultural life. Putting a library on the arts center grounds would certainly have the effect of drawing residents onto the campus on a daily basis -- something the exisiting CCAE Museum has only rarely managed to do. The museum has mostly been an after-thought, poorly run and with exhibits having very little appeal to the mainstream. I walk through that campus on a weekly basis, and most days it's a ghost town.

While Daniels and Pfeiler have argued that putting a library there would violate the voters' mandate to create and run an arts center, the voters don't seem particularly enamored with the current state of the arts center either. At least, not many of them are using it. If you're that worried about honoring the voters' wishes, put the question back to us on the next ballot.

Besides, a library is at least thematically related to an arts center -- both are part of a city's cultural and intellectual life. They would mesh well together, and the library could well provide that spark of regular traffic that would help the arts center flourish as well.

Let's find out if it's something we can do.

Contact staff writer Jim Trageser at jtrageser@nctimes.com or (760) 740-5408.