St. Albert residents will have access to a new storefront library by June at a cost of $796,200.
City councillors voted 6-1 Tuesday night during a budget meeting to approve funding for the library space, which will be located in the north end of the city.
Coun. Sheena Hughes was the only dissenting voice and vote as council members signed off on the 3,000-square-foot project.
The library was one of many projects approved by city council that will contribute to a 0.4-per-cent tax increase for residents in the coming year.
Peter Bailey, CEO for the St. Albert Public Library, said the new space will help fill a gap in the north end of the city.
“We have heard from a lot of people about their needs in terms of library services. We are pretty happy we can have a different kind of library to help serve their needs, up in the north,” Bailey said.
The future library space will deliver the greatest hits from the existing downtown location, including popular collections, children's programming, digital literacy and community space.
The library has been asking for a space solution for years and said the need for more services on the north side of the city became very apparent in 2016 when they launched their outreach literacy van. Staff encountered young families who had never been to the St. Albert library and wanted to access it but couldn't make it to the downtown location.
Coun. Ken MacKay, who sits on the library board as the council representative, said the storefront option is a creative response to the community's need.
“This is really a need and a unique opportunity that we have, in relation to try something new that actually recognizes how busy our library is,” MacKay said.
“It’s really about improving service delivery. It’s really a cost effective way of bringing library services to new areas without easy access to the public library.”
The library brings with it a total budget impact of $796,200 in 2019. That includes a capital cost of $517,000 for the location’s lease fees, which would be funded from the capital reserve, and $279,200 in operating costs, which would come from taxes. Operating costs are expected to be higher after 2019.
While considering funding the storefront library, council members had to interpret the results of last year’s election plebiscite, where 13,346 residents voted against further planning for a branch library and 7,802 voted in favour. Hughes believed the public rejected the planning of any future library space, while the rest of council believe the public said no to the branch library specifically but were not against other library space.
Hughes said the public made it very clear they did not want council to proceed with further planning for a branch library.
"When two-thirds of the people vote no, it's unambiguous that they are saying, ‘Stop with anything further with the branch library.’ We are not interested in moving forward on this," she said.
Other members of council felt like the storefront option was a good “stopgap” solution to the library issue, while still honouring the results of the plebiscite.
MacKay said the storefront library “isn’t anything similar to what (the branch library) is.”
Coun. Natalie Joly said during the election residents were clear they were against a $20-million branch library and added that funding the storefront library would be respecting the plebiscite vote.
Coun. Ray Watkins agreed, noting the city said no to the $20-million proposal.
“This is a very economical and efficient method to address some of the concerns the library has,” Watkins said.
Mayor "regrets" plebiscite
Mayor Cathy Heron said her “biggest regret” was supporting the plebiscite in the first place.“The biggest regret I ever did, I think, was maybe voting in favour of the plebiscite question, because they are so confusing and the interpretation thereof. And we pitted three facilities against each other, so people didn’t take one project on its merit – they were choosing a favourite,” she said.
Despite her regret over the question, she said the reason the three projects – ice space, aquatics and library – were taken to the public in the first place was because there was a need for them.
“It is clear to me we kind of need all three of these facilities. In a perfect world, I would love to say we could do all three,” Heron said.
She said residents who voted against the branch option in the plebiscite were voting against the specific $20-million charter being discussed around the election. Heron said council needs to respect voters who said no to the large branch library because of cost concerns but who did not ultimately say no to any more library space.
While door-knocking during the election campaign, the concerns residents raised were around the price tag, not all future library space, Heron told her council colleagues.
Fundraising requirement fails
Hughes proposed that the library be required to fundraise a portion of the money they need for the storefront project.She wanted to see the library fundraise $40,000 to go toward furnishing costs, which would have meant the city would need to cover only $477,000 for the capital component.
Hughes argued the library said they would be able to fundraise $500,000 for a branch library last year and that they should be able to raise eight per cent of that for the storefront.
“They could try. But to not even expect them to try and to bring forward a motion to have the library board funded, against the plebiscite results, and not even ask the library board to put in an effort other than lobby city politicians, I think is irresponsible,” Hughes said.
Bailey said while $40,000 doesn’t seem like a lot of money, it is a big challenge for a board that is not experienced with fundraising. For them to have raised the $500,000 for the branch library, Bailey said they would have had to hire a fundraising expert.
Hughes noted that just weeks ago, council cut the operating budgets for many non-profits in the city and are now expecting them to fundraise the rest. She added those organizations likely do not have fundraising experts on staff either.
MacKay said the comparison to other groups is unfair, as they are completely different organizations, and the specific fundraising requirement is “just wrong.”
“It just puts too much of a burden. If you don’t want to fund it, then minimize the funding, but if you want to pick and choose, you can’t. It's outside of our ability to do so,” MacKay said.
In the end, Hughes' motion failed with all of her council colleagues voting against it.
Medium-term solution
The storefront library is still only being proposed as a “stopgap” solution to what Bailey sees as a service need in the city.“With the plebiscite results last year, we did shelve our stand-alone branch library project. We understood the results of the plebiscite that people weren’t ready for a full-sized, stand-alone community branch library, but the needs remain," he said.
Bailey said the storefront will help fill the need for a few years, but he hopes that when the city moves forward with joint-use recreation facility planning, a larger library space is considered.
