If voters do not approve a $37 million bond to build a new
library this November, it will be harder to pass the measure later,
and the city may have wasted more than $130,000, warned the city
administrator.
If voters do not approve a $37 million bond to build a new library this November, it will be harder to pass the measure later, and the city may have wasted more than $130,000, warned the city administrator.
On top of the $20,000 it cost to survey voters earlier this year and the $40,000 the county will likely charge to place the measure on the ballot, it will cost another $83,000 to hire a consulting company to get the word out before November’s election, according to City Administrator Tom Haglund.
The council will consider the potential contract with the Lew Edwards Group at a study session Monday evening, but the body has until Aug. 8 to decide whether it wants to place the bond measure on the ballot. At its May 19 meeting, the council directed staff to prepare for this route. If the body officially approves the ballot effort, however, it will be crunch time for Lew Edwards.
“It’s usually a year-long effort to get the word out and meet with residences,” Haglund told the council Monday night. “If the measure fails this November, it could damage a future attempt.”
Councilman Craig Gartman half jokingly floated the idea of pegging the city’s payment to Lew Edwards on the measure’s success. The consultant would not advocate or excoriate the measure, but merely provide voters with the informational materials “that will best assist the public in understanding why the ballot initiative is being advanced for their consideration,” Haglund wrote. Private groups will then lobby their respective view points after the issue essentially becomes an issue, Haglund added.
“Not putting forward this effort may steer us away from helpful measure language and the necessary voter support,” Haglund said. “We can’t play an advocacy role, but we can (hire Lew Edwards to) explain why we think it’s needed, the current library conditions and the council’s reasoning for placing it on the ballot.”
But Councilman Perry Woodward and his colleagues expressed concern about such tight timing.
“I want to see this thing passed – don’t get me wrong – but there are people out there who don’t want to, so I’m concerned about using city money to push this thing toward a successful election in the fall.”
Woodward referred to bond opponents such as Mark Zappa, a conservative activist who has questioned the propriety of all residents financing a bond when not everyone will use the new library in an increasingly digital age.
Last January the city paid Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin & Associates about $20,000 to survey residents. The consultant reported that more than three in five, or 64 percent, supported the $37-million bond measure to fund library improvements, but that was not quite enough because bonds require a two-thirds voter approval.
Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin & Associates learned this by interviewing 400 Gilroy voters earlier this month in both Spanish and English. Most said the library is important, but they were concerned about increased property taxes and existing city funds.
Haglund also made the point, however, that putting the bond measure on the November ballot might give it a better chance than postponing the measure because this November more younger people will turn out at the polls to vote for president. The voter survey showed that younger people supported the bond more than older residents, Democrats more than Republicans, as well. But potential measures for the Gilroy Unified School District could also appear on the ballot and draw taxpayer support away from those more concerned with education, city officials have said.
Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin & Associates reported that when residents heard exactly how much the bond would cost them throughout 20 years – $49 per year per $100,000 of assessed property value – then library support dropped from 64 percent to 51 percent. Raising sales tax was another unfavorable idea, but when residents learned about the dilapidated building susceptibility to earthquakes and the potential for schoolchildren to be crushed, support rose again; but again, after voters heard all the factors, support did not quite exceed the necessary two-thirds.
Councilman Dion Bracco has warned the library’s closure is a legitimate possibility. From its leaky roof to its faulty heating and air system, “everything in that building is shot,” Bracco said. The current facility is also not up to par with earthquake safety building codes and has $2 million in deferred building maintenance needs, according to city staff.
The city owns the physical library building next door to City Hall on Rosanna Street, but the county provides the books, computers and other funding. The same arrangement would continue in the new library. Building plans for the library call for a two-story, 54,000-square-foot building to replace the tired one-story structure there now. If voters approve a bond for a new library, scheduled for construction in 2015, then that would free up $7.2 million in city funds slated for the project, and council members have indicated that that money could then augment the art’s center fund.
Bracco has also cautioned that this is the city’s “last chance” to get a new library in light of the city’s unsuccessful bids for State library construction funds between 2002 and 2004, according to Lani Yoshimura, Gilroy’s eighth librarian since 1907.
The state had $350 million to dole out for library renovations after Californians approved Proposition 14 in 2000. But other areas with no libraries or severely outdated facilities received the money, and then Gov. Schwarzenegger also cut State library funding by about $15 million last August to tighten the budget.
