City Wants to Demolish our Library, Build a 15,000 square foot Taj Mahal to Replace It
Do We Need It?
Can We Afford It?
Where Will the Money Come From to Run It?
- See the plans: Jan. 25, 6 p.m., City Council Chambers, 2175 Cherry Ave.
- Give the city council your opinion, Feb. 7, 7 p.m. City Council Chambers.
Signal Hill Community First encourages all Signal Hill residents to see the library conceptual design. Give the city your input but know the facts FIRST. Does it make economic sense to do this when…
* City does not know how many people use the current library
* The design is based on projections of 200 to 300 users a day
* Half the size of the library is for Non-Library Uses like a balcony for weddings/views
* Experts say libraries are primarily used for “latch-key children” after school
* There are TWO new libraries: one at Long Beach City College, the other at the New
Public School on Cherry Avenue
* City borrowed almost $8 million to build it through the now eliminated redevelopment agency
* Needs at least $550,000 for start-up costs.
* City audits show sales tax revenue losses of 30% since 2008. Revenues still lagging.
* City budget shows the city is operating at $1 million in the red this year
* New Police Station sits uncompleted and behind schedule
* City doesn’t know how much it will cost to run. But, a 2004 library study shows costs to run a 12,930 square foot library at $500,000 per year
* Current library costs are at $400,000 per year for our 4,000 square foot library
* City won’t be able to hire more library staff to supervise operations; but, will need enough employee hours equal to 5 full-time people for a 15,000 square foot library
Express Your Opinion
About Signal Hill First
Glad to see this posted, I think informing the community is very Important. I don’t think the city can afford this new library.
Thank you for all you do
We need to wait to build a luxury item until the economy turns around. Our money needs to be used for the police department and to pay bills.
I attended the Planning Commission presentation of the Library Design. The Commission was not tasked with the financial aspect of borrowing money, repaying the loan, building costs, operation costs, sufficiency of staffing, just to name a few things left to the Council to decide at its next meeting on February 7th.
The architect described the 15,000 foot building design to replace the existing 4,000 library. The staff answered questions from the audience.
I noticed that the staff did not present all the facts it had gathered from its trips to other libraries. Instead the Staff reported only those facts that support the building of the library as proposed.
For example, library staff at 3 libraries visited by the Library Committee reported that for a library of the size proposed, five full time staff and 10 to 12 part time staff were required to adequately supervise the children and perform services, such as assisting patrons with computer usage.
The Staff said that the Council instructed them that no more than 2 staff is all that would be funded for the new library.
The staff at the 3 libraries visited by the Library Committee also also reported that the library is primarily used by adults from opening time (10am) until the children arrive when school lets out (1:30-2 p.m.). Then the adults are annoyed by the noise from the kids and students, and they leave. The Staff recognized that the library was primarily a day care center in the afternoon because parents did not come to pick up the kids until closing time (6-8 p.m.)
It is important that all the facts are presented, not just the ones that support the staff’s goal of getting the project completed. How can anyone be expected to make an informed decision if they are not informed of all the facts?
First, THANK YOU for all who took the time and effort to alert us of tonight’s (WED) meeting. It was encouraging to see the city hall chambers packed with a standing room only crowd.
While the architect (that will be paid in excess of $600,000) and landscape architect gave a nice presentation of the planned 15,000 square foot library, I believe this project is massively excessive in size and cost and the timing for this project couldn’t be worse.
What will happen when the new library doesn’t meet projections of people who will use it?(and it won’t) Then the nice big library will have to close on certain days. Hours of operation will have to be cut back. Staff will have to be let go, then the city council will come after us tax payers to foot the bill. This is happening all over California and especially in parts of Southern California.
Signal Hill is running a million dollars in the red now! We can’t support a huge library with that kind of red ink. Current operating costs for our library now is $400,000. What will the cost be for a 15,000 sq ft library? You can bet a LOT more than than they say.
I was surprised to learn our current library doesn’t even offer free wifi for people and kids who want to bring their lap top computers now to the facility. That should have been made available a long time ago.
Has anybody thought of expanding our current library that would include upgrades and additions that would make it a more attractive cost wise? How about privatizing the library to save money?
A library that would cost in the 8 figure range for a city of 11,000 is just NUTS!
While I served on the City Council and Redevelopment Agency from 1990 to 1994, I was told by the City Attorney that the State was promoting redevelopment of “blighted” areas in an attempt to get the Cities to “clean up” contaminated soils and bring in businesses that generated “revenues” for the cities, counties and state.
To get the money the City had to “map out” a redevelopment area that had “contamination and blight”. Signal Hill did this.
The current library and police department are NOT in this “mapped out” area.
As time passed, the State of California realized that the Cities were abusing the Redevelopment Law and were borrowing money and having the State repay the debts. The Cities were giving money away to restaurants and “mini-mansion” housing developers and were not cleaning up blight, building affordable housing, or generating income to the State.
So the State put its foot down and closed the Redevelopment Agencies.
Our City Attorney and Staff, who earn a very large portion of their income from Redevelopment, saw the end of redevelopment coming. So they advised the Council to “borrow as much as you can now, before the source evaporates”.
That is why the City borrowed the $8.5 Million dollars when it did.
The State Law provides that borrowed money has to be spent for “redevelopment purposes”. Since the Library is NOT in a redevelopment area and is NOT removing “blight” on the site or in the neighborhood, the loan is legally suspect.
That means that should the State be encouraged to investigate the factual basis for the loan, it can decide that the money borrowed was for an illegal purpose and has to be repaid. HERE IS WHERE THE RESIDENTS NEED TO BE REALLY CONCERNED.
Mr. Samson is correct. If the library is under-used, it could (because as the Architect states – it is just a shell) easily be CONVERTED into a new “City Hall”, paid for by the State. Another illegal use of Redevelopment Funds.
I would rather see a smaller library in a location that was actually “blighted” and improve the neighborhood.
Let the Council be honest about the use of the Redevelopment money. I will support the new library fully.
REDEVELOPMENT UPDATE ON LIBRARY
The City received notice from the California Department of Finance that it was disallowing future contracts to construct the Library.
Since the Library was to be funded with money borrowed from the State, and the State Legislature revoked Redevelopment requiring all projects to cease immediately and repayment of all unused bond funds, even though the City is sitting on $7.5 million in borrowed state funds, it cannot enter into contracts to build the Library.
This situation is not unique to Signal Hill. Cities across the state have been sent letters from the Department of Finance denying their claims for ongoing state funding of projects not under construction.
With the Library projecting to cost the city approximately $500,000 a year in operating costs, perhaps it is time to rethink the size and scope of the project?