If determination by the City Council and a passel of fans counts
for anything, Morgan Hill will have a new library soon, with or
without state help.
If determination by the City Council and a passel of fans counts for anything, Morgan Hill will have a new library soon, with or without state help.
“By June we will come back with one solid proposal,” said Councilman Steve Tate. “Where it is and how we pay for it.”
At Wednesday’s council meeting, Tate trotted out the results from weeks of head scratching and number busting by the library sub-committee composed of Tate, Mayor Dennis Kennedy, representatives from the Library Commission, the general public, city staff and the library. His report was buffered by a line of book-loving voters treking to the microphone, carrying signs and wearing buttons asking for a bigger, better building.
Resident Jean Lloyd asked for more diligent efforts and ended with a cheer.
“Tonight there is something happening,” Lloyd said. “There’s a groundswell. Let’s do it.”
Tate displayed four 30,000 square-feet buildings on four possible sites and some cost analysis provided by architect Jim Dumas, senior project manager for community buildings. He laid out the pluses and minuses of each site and asked his colleagues to provide recommendations for finding answers to questions that will inevitably arise.
Since two sites would consider building the library downtown, away from its current, quieter neighborhood location, council expects the large public outcry it heard several years ago when the Library Commission, after months of study, recommended a more public location.
Whatever site is ultimately chosen, council said it would make sure the public would know the pros and cons of each site and have opportunities to speak before a final decision was made.
“I’m committed to finding a way to build a new library,” Tate said. “We will deliver on that promise.”
Moving the library from its neighborhood location to one more central would follow current trends in library-thinking. Sunnyvale, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Campbell, Los Gatos, Saratoga, Cupertino, Milpitas, San Francisco, Berkeley, Palm Springs, Santa Barbara and a host of other cities have built their new libraries on or within one block of a main street, all finding a way to keep their children safe from traffic.
The reason, library officials say, is that a library that is seen and easy to get to is used more than one that is not. Additional benefits of a downtown library would be to downtown merchants and, ultimately the city’s general fund that collects additional sales taxes. Currently the library draws between 1,000 and 1,500 visitors a day.
“Any new library doubles its visitors,” said Nancy Howe, city librarian.
THE PLANS
The first plan would be to renovate or demolish the current Civic Center building, leaving room for expansion, with a total cost estimated at $15.04 million.
Plan two is to build a scaled-down version of the building already designed by architects Noll and Tam when the city still expected to receive $14 million from state library bond funds. The site would be the vacant land behind City Hall and the library, at a cost (estimated) of $16,180,000.
A Civic Center location would benefit the neighbors who emphatically say they do not want the library moved away, St. Catherine Catholic School students, many of whom go to the library after school, some to do homework, others to hang out until their parents pick them up. The site is also comfortable for those used to it being there for 30 years and deemed safer because of less, but by no means little, traffic in the area.
Construction costs would be somewhat higher for the Civic Center sites because of slope, water table and utility problems, said Anthony Eulo, assistant to the city manager, but not the $525 per square-foot as reported earlier by Mayor Dennis Kennedy. Renovating a building, architect Dumas said, is always higher than building fresh since current building codes must be met. And, he said, renovation would mean moving the books out and storing most during the one-year construction period.
Plan three would locate a library on the Keystone Avenue/Monterey Road corner of the Britton Middle School campus, for $14,480,000 (plus or minus) though details are sketchy since only preliminary conversations have been held with the school district.
Ninth grade students will leave Britton this fall, easing the campus population, Tate said. Other benefits to the school would be additional parking available for Britton events, a nearby library (also used by nearby P.A. Walsh and Crossroads School), a stop light making the Monterey Road crosswalk much safer, and the elimination of the district’s need to maintain sports fields for public use. The city and school district will discuss the pros and cons of a Britton site this week.
A final plan, sketchier still because the details are emerging, is to share the Sunsweet site on East Third Street in a collaboration with developer Rocke Garcia, at a cost of, possibly, $10.25 million. A library on this site would benefit downtown merchants, the general fund, development of the Third/Fourth/Depot street quadrant, Tate said.
THE MONEY
The city has $7.14 million reserved in Redevelopment Agency funds. Another $3 million could be borrowed from the flood control fund since that would not be used until PL566 is funded, thought to be years and years away, according to Kennedy. $650,000 expected from the sale of the old police building to El Toro Brewing Co. could be added to the building fund. There is $1 million that could be turned from downtown improvements to a library built downtown – but not in the current site – and a few other bits and pieces, including library impact fees.
Kennedy asked City Manager Ed Tewes and his financial team to identify the remaining funds which council could then decide to reallocate or not.
Councilman Greg Sellers said the city should also look outside the city for funds since the library also serves thousands of county residents in unincorporated areas.
Recreation Manager Julie Spier told council that the city turned in the third grant proposal on Friday, hoping to be awarded state library bond money. Since the city’s first two grant proposals were denied in favor of needier cities, council does not hold out much hope.
“We should hear in September,” Spier said.
In the meantime, the city is pulling up its bootstraps and peering in every corner for forgotten funds.
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way, said Kennedy.
Council also heard a report on a meeting with neighbors of the planned Indoor Recreation Center (West Edmundson Ave. next to Community Park) from Mori Struve, deputy director of Public Works.
A few of the 400 households contacted, Struve said, came to the meeting. None stayed to comment to the Parks and Recreation Commission. He said he thought the reason was that public opinion was heard earlier in the project’s planning phase.
