Strike three. It’s clear that despite earning a
”
very good
”
rating and a concerted lobbying effort by city officials and
staff, Gilroy is not going to be receiving any state money to build
a new library.
Strike three. It’s clear that despite earning a “very good” rating and a concerted lobbying effort by city officials and staff, Gilroy is not going to be receiving any state money to build a new library.
It’s a shame – and a sham perhaps – but the reality is that despite overcrowding and usage numbers that clearly demonstrate a need for a new library, Gilroy has not been able to crack the state funding threshold in three rounds of competition.
We’re out.
So we must ask ourselves, how is it that Gilroy can build a new $29 million police facility and not be able to afford a new library for our residents?
We understand the objections to that question, but the truth is our City Council and city administration must answer it in a manner that is honest.
The answer points to our priorities, and with regards to building and maintaining public facilities, those priorities should be re-examined.
Sports park, library, arts center, park facilities, downtown improvements … the list for worthwhile public facilities is – and has been for quite a while – long.
While Morgan Hill has been building a community center, a theater, an aquatics facility and improving downtown, Gilroy has built a shared city/school gymnasium, a third fire station that isn’t fully staffed and soon will add a very expensive police station.
Yes, we know Morgan Hill has a redevelopment agency. But our northern neighbor has nowhere near the amount of sales tax and impact fee cash flowing into city coffers and hasn’t for the last decade.
But back to the library. It’s time that the city stopped hoping that the state will solve its problem and begin to think outside the civic center complex box. From all indications, Gilroy’s insistence on the civic center location without exploring a public process about where else a new library might be located, hurt our community’s proposal.
Given that, what about putting a new library close to downtown? Would a new Gilroy library project attract grant money if it wasn’t stubbornly anchored in the current location? Could it fit into a proposal such as South County Housing’s cannery project?
There will be another library bond on the state ballot in 2006. But if Gilroy does not seriously consider other options, hopes for a new library may become permanently shelved.
We are writing the library story for the 70,000 residents predicted to live here in 2020. How that story will end is up to the leaders here now.
