GILROY
– City officials are investing $20,000 in what amounts to a
last-ditch effort to land a multimillion dollar grant to rebuild,
or at least refurbish, Gilroy’s quarter-century-old library.
By Lori Stuenkel
GILROY – City officials are investing $20,000 in what amounts to a last-ditch effort to land a multimillion dollar grant to rebuild, or at least refurbish, Gilroy’s quarter-century-old library.
City Administrator Jay Baksa announced last week that Gilroy would spend a little money now in the hopes of getting a lot later by hiring a consultant experienced in winning government funding.
The city wants to add $12.7 million in state funding to the more than $6 million of its own money that will one day be used to upgrade the Gilroy Library. It will pay a consulting firm, The Wilson Group, $20,000 to repackage a grant application that now has failed twice to woo the state.
“The best way to describe this is desperation,” Councilman Bob Dillon said. “It’s unlikely at best for us to win the grant. Apparently, there are needier cities than Gilroy.”
Dillon is Gilroy’s representative on the joint powers authority for the Santa Clara County library system. He said that, ironically, the Gilroy Library’s ability to be a successful, albeit overcrowded, branch has kept the city low on the state’s funding priority list.
“We have a functioning library that’s terrific, and that makes us less needy,” Dillon said. “If we don’t get this grant, I don’t see it in the cards for Gilroy to get a library any time in the near future. This is it.”
The Gilroy Library is the busiest library per square foot in the county.
According to Baksa, the consultant has expressed confidence that Gilroy can at least earn more qualifying points in the competitive process. With more points, the city will climb higher in the priority rankings which determine the cities that get funding.
California voters approved $350 million in November 2000 to renovate and build libraries throughout the state, to be distributed in three rounds. Because there is an estimated $2 billion in library needs throughout California, competition has been fierce.
Applications for the third and final round are due Jan. 16. Still remaining in the pot is $91.8 million.
The current Gilroy library, built in 1975, occupies a 13,000-square-foot space. The projected building would be 52,000 square feet, large enough to meet space needs per person through the next 20 to 30 years.
