Library Commissioners were treated to a proposed new vision for
the Morgan Hill Library at its meeting last week, and ended up
urging the City Council to put a higher priority on building the
new library and to put its extra money in the library fund.
Library Commissioners were treated to a proposed new vision for the Morgan Hill Library at its meeting last week, and ended up urging the City Council to put a higher priority on building the new library and to put its extra money in the library fund.
Council will have to approve spending any more staff time on redoing the plans and proposals, Recreation Services Manager Julie Spier told the commission.
Commissioner Bert Berson, who is new to the commission, presented his vision, saying a library is “a trusted environment that promotes life-long learning for the entire community.”
Berson provided a chart detailing who uses the library, what should be included in the new building: seating, technology, shelves.
Much of the discussion centered around free meeting rooms, outdoor amphitheaters, gathering spaces and a park-like setting for the quiet Civic Center neighborhood, facilities the city’s $24 million community center already offers, though at a fee to cover operating and maintenance expenses.
No mention was made of how the library would cover those costs without a user fee, Julie Spier, Recreation Services Manager, said Monday.
The council will see the new use plans at its Oct. 27 meeting and decide whether to go forward and which direction to take.
Spier said Monday that she didn’t think the 28,000 square-foot building space would allow rooms enough to compete with the community center.
Members of the commission, librarians and city staff members went through a similar visioning process beginning four years ago when the first plans for a library were being developed.
The architectural firm of Noll and Tam, chosen to design the building, has been paid $306,853.
The process was fine-tuned when the city submitted its first application for $11 million of the $350 million in state bond money from Proposition 14, the library renovation and building act passed in November 2000.
A state decision on the third round of Prop. 14 money is due in October, Spier said.
The City Council will have a third choice: waiting to see if Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signs SB40, the $2 billion library construction bill introduced by state Senator DeDe Alpert.
