Fayetteville library millage increase passes

Minneapolis-based Meyer, Scherer & Rockcastle has done some preliminary design work for a proposed expansion to the Fayetteville Public Library.
Minneapolis-based Meyer, Scherer & Rockcastle has done some preliminary design work for a proposed expansion to the Fayetteville Public Library.

FAYETTEVILLE — The library will be able to expand with the support of voters.

Final but unofficial results Tuesday were 3,615 votes, or 59 percent, for a 1.5-mill increase to pay for the library’s maintenance and operations, with 2,549 votes, or 41 percent, against. On Question 2 to impose 1.2 mills to pay for the expansion’s construction, there were 3,437 votes for, or 56 percent, and 2,725 votes against, or 44 percent.

The Washington County Election Commission has to certify the results before they become official.

Increasing the library’s 1-mill property tax levy to 3.7 mills will generate $26.5 million that will go to the library’s $49 proposed expansion. The rest will come from donations.

Taxpayers will spend an extra $54 per year for each assessed $100,000 of property owned.

Library executive director David Johnson said the vote meant the city believes in its library.

“They value what the library represents — free and equal access to knowledge,” he said.

Jeff Koenig, who led Build Fayetteville’s Future, the campaign for the library millage increase, said it was a great day for Fayetteville.

Kenny Wallis, a member of the campaign against the millage increase, said he hoped voters would prioritize better in future elections.

The plan to expand began in 2013 after the library did its 2030 plan study. Part of that study was a needs assessment, which served as the basis for the expansion plan.

Library staff have said repeatedly the facility’s demand has outweighed its space. The library’s board has raised fees, frozen salaries and trimmed about $300,000 in maintenance, material and programs in the past two years in order to stretch its budget. More than 160 programs were cut between 2014 and 2015.

Fayetteville’s population growth also became a concern for the library. By its projections, the library will serve 115,000 people by 2030 — a 79 percent increase from the 64,000 it served in 2004, when it opened.

The library hired its original architect, Jeffrey Scherer, and his firm, Meyer, Scherer and Rockcastle, to head design efforts on the expansion. Scherer has since retired, and architect Jack Poling of the Minneapolis-based firm led a series of public input sessions in July on the proposed features.

Which way the library will expand depends on the outcome of a state Supreme Court decision. The plan presented to the public in July entails expanding 88,000 square feet south onto the old City Hospital land, which is owned by Washington Regional Medical Center. The $2 million sale of the land to the Fayetteville Public Library has been on hold since heirs of the Stone family, who donated the land to the city a century ago, began fighting it in court. Circuit and appeals court judges have ruled in favor of the land sale. The case made it to the state Supreme Court’s docket, and in late July, the petition for review was granted.

Stephen and Amanda Stone gave the land south of where the library sits now to Fayetteville in 1906, stipulating it be used as a city hospital, which it was for several decades. Washington Regional started leasing the land from the City Hospital organization in the 1990s and was named City Hospital’s successor in 2011.

The city traded the land to Washington Regional for 1 acre near the medical center for a roundabout. The Stone heirs brought their objections to court when Washington Regional sued to clear the land’s title for sale.

If the Supreme Court decision doesn’t go the library’s way, the plan is to go upward and expand on the library’s 88,000-square-foot building, which was designed to be able to have floors added to it.

The cost to expand upward would be about the same as expanding south, Poling has said.

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