The Library Board met for the first time Tuesday since the proposal for a new $4.6 million library failed in a city vote earlier this month.
Board members discussed why they thought the proposal did not pass and looked to the future in terms of planning next steps
Library Board President Eric Magette said there were many factors that led to the election results.
“It’s such a perfect storm of so much right now,” Magette said. “As divided as people are, as mistrustful as people are, you add on to that the property tax going up.”
The owner of a $150,000 home in Eudora currently pays about $67 a year in taxes to support the library. This would have increased to $132 a year for the next 20 years if the library had been approved.
There was a difference of 161 votes, with 986 voting no and 825 voting yes. The final canvass is Monday and will take into account any remaining provisional ballots, but the final result is not expected to change.
Don Grosdidier, co-chairman of the New Library Capital Campaign, said it was difficult to inform the public throughout the campaign.
“COVID didn’t help either,” Grosdidier said. “The inability to get out and hold more public meetings. We probably did five or six on-site meetings, but the Zoom meetings were not well attended at all.”
Library Director Carol Wohlford discussed adopting a new strategy for the next campaign, which would mean getting in touch directly with those who rejected the proposal.
“We talked about taking another look, not to change minds, but to expand views,” Wohlford said. “There are those people whose views won’t ever be expanded, but there are a large amount of people whose views might be.”
Grosdidier recommended bringing in an outside group to poll the Eudora community and see what issues regarding the library and the proposal come up in surveys.
“I think you could really break down and get some data on what people want, what people support and then maybe we find a package after that,” Grosdidier said.
Board Treasurer Amy Jankowski said further community outreach could include the board being present at EudoraFest or meeting with residents at local businesses like Zeb’s Coffeehouse.
Jankowski added that since COVID-19 put some of the library’s programs on hold, people may have forgotten the impact a library can have on a community.
Magette said it might be worth having someone inspect the current library and see how much it would cost to bring it up to code, especially in terms of ADA compliance. He referenced community members who asked why the roughly $500,000 raised for the new library couldn’t be used to renovate the current one.
“Well, if you do a major renovation, you have to bring the building up to code,” Magette said. “My guess is that most of that money would go to just making it compliant. I think being able to have a number for that is a good idea.”
Grosdidier said most of the money contributed by donors is supposed to be designated for the construction of a new library. He’s unsure if it could be used for a renovation project, and Magette added he would look into this.
Wohlford brought up the lack of resources the current library has and the difficulty those in wheelchairs have when trying to navigate the building.
“We’ve so outgrown it, and we really can’t do the programming that we want to do,” Wohlford said.
Grosdidier said he would stay and provide assistance to the library board, but if there is another library campaign, he will not chair it. Laura Lewis also co-chaired this past campaign.
“I think both of us feel an obligation to the donors to continue to see it through, but we’ve been at this a long time and I’m willing to help out, but I can’t run another campaign,” Grosdidier said.
The board did not finalize any plans related to when the next campaign or election would be, but stressed the importance of community outreach in the meantime.
“It feels like for the last six years, we kind of got on a train and that train was getting up to this point,” Magette said. “Now we have a chance to take a step back, take a deep breath, figure out what the community wants. I think we did it right this time, but we have a chance to do it right again.”
Reach reporter Abby Shepherd at [email protected]
