Library trustees ponder outcome
Spokane County Library District trustees want more time to decipher the message voters sent them about a proposal to build two new libraries in Spokane Valley.
Trustees agreed Tuesday that last week’s rejection of a $33.4 million bond measure was a forceful message about something. Just what, they couldn’t tell.
The bond measure, which also would have expanded the Argonne Library near Millwood, needed 60 percent support to pass. Instead, it had 54.5 percent opposition.
“I need to go door-knocking,” trustee Mary Lloyd said. “I need to know why.”
Other trustees agreed they needed more information, and the five-member board decided to wait at least until next year to ask voters again for construction money.
The failed bond measure would have provided a new $24.9 million, 58,600-square-foot library at the site of what is now the University City Shopping Center. The new library would have been more than twice as much space as the existing Spokane Valley Library at 12004 E. Main Ave., which would have closed.
The measure also called for expanding the Argonne Library near Millwood and would have provided a new $7.7 million, 15,000-square-foot library at the east end of Spokane Valley, on Conklin Road.
Trustees speculated about high gasoline prices, the sour economy in general, satisfaction with current library services and a possible backlash against Spokane Valley’s Sprague-Appleway renovation plan.
In addition to developing a city center with a new library and city hall, the plan calls for restoring two-traffic on Sprague Avenue and Appleway Boulevard and for converting commercial land on Appleway to residential use.
In public meetings, property owners have objected to “downzoning,” and commuters overwhelmingly have objected to any change in the one-way Sprague-Appleway couplet. At least a few people publicly suggested voting against the library bonds to thwart the city’s plans.
“I wonder how much that hurt us.” trustee Tim Hattenburg said of the renovation plan.
Trustee Frank Payne proposed a quick follow-up election in which voters would be asked only to build the Conklin Road library. Focusing on just that library would bring the bond cost down from 25 cents per $1,000 of assessed value to 8 cents.
That assumes the proposed Greater Spokane Valley Library Capital Facility Area wouldn’t be reduced to the area the Conklin Road branch is expected to serve. Payne argued that the branch would benefit the entire Greater Spokane area by reducing pressure on other branches.
In fact, he suggested, the entire library district might be asked to pay for the new branch.
Passing a bond measure for the Conklin Road branch would provide benefits elsewhere in the district by reimbursing the $452,000 the district spent for the approximately two-acre site.
Just as the Conklin Road site was purchased with “seed money” recovered from a bond measure to build the Moran Prairie branch, the Conklin Road money could help the district acquire land for a new branch near the Wandermere Mall north of Spokane.
Director Michael Wirt said the district has an option on an approximately four-acre site at the southeast corner of Hastings Road and Perry Street. The option requires the district to complete the $747,489 purchase by Aug. 30.
The new library probably wouldn’t be built for at least 10 years, but “the board is really feeling the need to be able to purchase the site because it’s going to be gone in the future,” Wirt said.
He said the new library would be about twice as large as the North Spokane Library at 44 E. Hawthorne Road, which would remain open.
The North Spokane Library is comparable in size to the library planned on Conklin Road.
The Conklin Road library, near Shelley Lake, would be in the only precinct in the proposed Greater Spokane Valley Library Capital Facility Area to give the bond measure the 60 percent support it needed.
Payne saw several advantages to another bond measure this year, limited to the Conklin Road branch.
He wanted to avoid having a bond measure on the ballot next year at the same time trustees plan to ask voters for a tax levy lid lift.
Also, he speculated that passage of a smaller bond measure could grease the skids for a larger one later.
If the Greater Spokane Valley Library Capital Facility Area were established for a Conklin Road bond measure, maybe the same district could be used later for a bond measure to replace the Spokane Valley Library, Payne suggested. That way, the larger bond measure wouldn’t be encumbered with a two-part vote to establish a district and levy a tax.
Voters narrowly failed to form the taxing district, but that required only a simple majority.
Other trustees questioned whether state law would allow the district to be used again without another vote. Wirt is researching the issue.
Even if Payne’s strategy is allowed by law, other trustees questioned whether it would be appropriate to ask voters in Millwood to build a library on the other side of Spokane Valley.
Anyway, Chairwoman Ann Apperson said, “I’m just not sure we should pop right back with it.”
“In my heart, I agree with what Frank said,” trustee Jacob Laete said. “We need to keep moving ahead.”
But Laete said his “head” told him the message in last week’s vote may have been that voters “just don’t see the need right now.”
“I agree with you,” Apperson said. “This isn’t a no vote on the library. It’s almost a satisfied vote.”
The board agreed by consensus to gather more information without presenting another bond measure this year.
Trustees also agreed not to pay for an extension of their option to buy about 3 1/2 acres in the University City Shopping Center. However, the library district paid nothing for the option that expires Aug. 30, and trustees hoped the mall owners would renew it at no cost.
The district spent about $43,000 to obtain the option, but the money went to attorneys, site consultants, architects and appraisers. A $50,000 promissory note that would have applied to the purchase was payable only if the bond measure has passed.
City officials, who consider the new Spokane Valley Library a cornerstone for their proposed city center, now must re-evaluate their plans.