Council meets with library group
Split between new building or retrofitting existing one
Building a new city library facility or retrofitting an existing building in the city into a new library dominated the nearly two-hour joint city council and library and literacy commission meeting on Tuesday.
All five members of the library and literacy commission agreed that the main reason for considering a new library facility is because the current one is too small.
“That is the biggest problem,” said Edith Lavonne, the vice chair of the commission.
Lavonne said city library staff oftentimes have to deny children the opportunity to participate in some of the programs the library provides because there isn’t enough room.
“Some people can’t get in and they leave because of it and the kids are crying,” Lavonne said. “Kids cry when they can’t go in there.”
However, Vice Mayor Brian Ward believes there is plenty of space in the current library that isn’t being used.
“We have a lot of space in our current facility that isn’t utilized to its full potential,” Ward said. “There is a lot of space that could be modernized in a way that could serve as a multi-use type of facility or multi-use space.”
Nevertheless, understanding that the city is growing larger everyday, Ward said he realizes that a bigger building for a library will be needed at some point and felt one place where it could be located is the vacant building across the street from the current library.
Ward said the council purchased the “modernized facility” for $2.4 million.
“Does the commission have a problem with that facility,” Ward said, noting that the building is around 12,000 square feet, about 3,000 square feet more than the current library. “Why would that not be a suitable future home of a library.”
Allan Bailey, a member on the library and literacy commission, said there are many issues with the building and the location of it, one of them being parking.
“You are still in the downtown corridor where that accessibility is a bit of a difficulty,” Bailey said.
Patience Christenson, the chair of the commission, added, “The parking is across the street and
the people that use the library are people with young kids who don’t want to try and cross the street.”
Although bigger than the current library, Bailey said the square footage of the building Ward proposed is simply not large enough.
“We need to be thinking about future growth of the city, not just keeping up with the current size of the city,” he said, noting that he, as well as the rest of the commission, prefer a brand new building to house the city’s next library.
Ward felt the building he proposed, as well as other buildings in the city that are already constructed, would be more reasonable and realistic from a financial standpoint.
“You have a facility that could be retrofitted to be a new facility for a library versus coming up with $15 million or $20 million for a new facility
on top of the additional million dollars to maintain and operate that facility,” Ward said, adding, “We [city council] purchased the building that has already been constructed because we wouldn’t have to spend 20 to 30 percent more, and it keeps it [library] downtown.”
Bailey wasn’t convinced.
“You are retrofitting something that wasn’t really intended to be a library to begin with,” he said. “I’m not saying it is not possible to do so, but that also creates a bit of a challenge.”
Bailey added that the commission is also willing to seek joint-use opportunities for a new library to expand cultural and civic engagement, a concept he and the commission have seen played out in other parts of the state such as at the Palo Alto Mitchell Park Library and the Rancho Cucamonga Victoria
Gardens Cultural Arts Center.
As far as doing a joint facility, Ward said the commission’s best shot is the five acres the city owns across the street from its wastewater treatment facility.
“That would be the closest, large-scale project with a newer facility with land that is already owned by the city,” Ward said.
Whatever the commission chooses to do with regard to a new library, Mayor Milt Stowe said they need to first establish a library foundation.
“I think it would be beneficial to have one because I know most of the resources and the funding Tulare had to build their library came from a foundation,” Stowe said, adding, “Find out what kind of library you want, then go out and get the foundation.”
Councilmember Monte Reyes agreed.
“The foundation option
is the only viable thing that is going to be able to unlock any freedom for the library commission to do anything going forward,” he said.
He added that putting forward a portion of the nearly $200,000 the library received in 2007 and in 2016 as gifts toward the formation of a library foundation wouldn’t be a bad idea either.
Councilmember Martha Flores said to have a foundation would be an asset to the commission.
“That is vitally important,” she said.
In addition to a library foundation, Stowe said a tax measure might be a good idea as well, and another way for the commission to generate funds to construct a new library facility.
Stowe noted that the commission will first have to find out what city residents want to see in the new library and then produce a rendering of the proposed facility.
Stowe believes if city residents like what they see, there’s a better chance they’ll buy into it.
“You have to show them what they are going to get for their money,” Stowe said. “When Tulare did that they [Tulare residents] doubled their money.”
Ward added that the commission should take its time as it will most likely only have “one crack at the voters.”
“Council is not going to authorize a vote every two years or every four years, we are not going to make this a perpetual type of issue,” he said, adding, “I think if you are going to have people separate their dollars from their wallet you are going to need to offer them a nice facility.”
City Manager John Lollis said another source of funding for a new library is the State Library Bond.
“That is the largest pool of money,” Lollis said.