Plan adds Greenacres library

Library leaders authoring a plan to replace the Spokane Valley Library have written a new chapter in their proposal: an increase in the tax measure that would fund a new library in Greenacres, too.

The Spokane County Library District board voted Tuesday to add $6 million toward the Greenacres library to its $24 million plans to replace the cramped Spokane Valley Library with a building twice as big at a different location.

Additionally, proceeds from selling the old Valley library building would go toward a 1,900-square-foot addition to the Argonne branch near Millwood.

“All of the sudden, it just seemed to come together,” said Library District Director Mike Wirt, who thought of adding the new branch to the project a couple weeks ago.

“We need to be there before the development gets there so we have a place to put it,” he said.

A library for the rapidly developing Greenacres area is already in the district’s adopted long-range plan, and Wirt and his colleagues argue it would make sense to take both proposals to voters at the same time next spring.

The result would be an increase in the tax rate levied to pay for library construction from 19 cents per $1,000 of assessed value to 24 to 25 cents, said district spokeswoman Beth Gillespie.

The district has proposed forming a special taxing area to pay for the libraries like the one used recently to build the Moran Prairie branch library.

The district’s proposed boundaries remain unchanged and include the city of Spokane Valley, its outlying neighborhoods, the town of Millwood and possibly the unincorporated neighborhoods around Liberty Lake.

“The land would be more affordable now, and there’s land to purchase now” in Greenacres, Gillespie said, adding that district officials have been looking at sites near Sprague Avenue east of Sullivan Road.

The Greenacres branch would have about 15,000 square feet of space, with the first architectural work tentatively planned for 2014 or 2015, she said.

Architects already have been hired to assess the needs for the new Spokane Valley Library, which has been estimated at 58,600 square feet.

The board also decided to move the vote on whether to fund the projects to March 11 so the district won’t be competing for attention with the presidential primary in February.

“We’re going to have enough bond issues coming up as it is” for other projects in the county, said Friends of the Library member Larry Sayrs.

One ballot issue for both has a better chance of getting passed than two separate measures, he said, and Sayrs doesn’t expect the increase in the tax amount will deter people who support the project.