Letter to the Editor: If the Library Fails...

What will happen if the ballot for the debt exclusion for the expansion is defeated on Dec. 13th?  Here are some options.

1.  Turn to the $200,000 CPC funds already allocated to do a patch with ramps and lift.  

A horrendous choice, one that will never happen. Why? While it legally provides handicapped access into the building, it does not make the building practically accessible in many areas.  

Assistance from staff would be needed to retrieve any resources from the upper book stacks and it would still be difficult at best to navigate within the main level of stacks and reading room.

Secondly, the children's library would see its area reduced by a third or more, and an office function would have to be moved into the reading room, further reducing the available space for patrons.

Finally, those CPC funds do nothing to address the safety and the poor state of the current building systems _ heating, cooling, electrical, windows and doors, etc. _ whose costs would grossly eclipse the amount spent on accessibility. All would be temporary steps until a full solution is taken.

2.  Make the building totally ADA compliant throughout.  

No change in size. Cost: $2.9 Million which will give us a fine building, but does nothing to address size limitations and the ability to provide adequate services. Town funds (no state $$) would be spent on access/safety/infrastructure, issues that are critical, but there would be zero expansion to the library, essentially making the 1927 building even smaller for a 2027 population.

3. Make the building totally accessible and expand the footprint only 2X to 14,000 feet. 

Cost: $5.8 million and all town funds. Yes, some expansion but it would become the 13th smallest of 53, not fourth smallest. The actual library service area would be less than 2X because of proper ADA space requirements. No private funds (donors are championing only a 21st century library).

Compare these solutions to the already approved plan of $11.6M, less the grant of $5M and $800K goal of private funding. Town cost  = $6.6M less private funding of up to $800K. That’s $414/square foot for the 2X option  vs. $208/square foot (includes currently raised private funds) for the full, state-funded project.

We’d be paying nearly twice as much per square foot for a building half the size.

So we do have options with this debt exclusion vote on Dec. 13. Go with the expansion as voted upon and accepted by the community, or address the same problem at the May 2012 Town Meeting with less services, less space, less everything at about the same money. Still about $79 a year, either way.

Henry Poler