The Library Board met 11/15/2022. They received a few information items.
The first was an update on the library project. Library Executive Director Colleen Rortvedt had submitted a memo which was basically a rehash of the information that had been presented to the Common Council on 11/02/2022.
The square footage was going to have to be reduced because limiting the amount of excavation was a way to save a lot of money. They would also be shifting from using wood to using steel, which was an interesting change given that there were times during the design and development of the project that steel had been more expensive than wood.
The way the lighting was structured was going to be changed. A Library Board member expressed concern about that because of how dark some spaces were in the current building, but Director Rortvedt explained that the original design had included long, swooping, raceway-looking lights which were higher priced. That was being replaced with a more practical lighting scheme.
The children’s sunken garden was also not in the cards given the amount of excavation that it would entail and the staircases were going to be modified.
Director Rortvedt told the board, “Had none of the economic things that have been going on been going on, all of those things would have been totally within the budget. But we just have to be a little more shrewd now with what we can afford.”
Prior to the scaled down project going to bid, new concept drawings would be released for the community and Common Council to see.
The Friends of the Appleton Public Library was working on keeping donors informed about changes to make sure that they were still comfortable with what was going on and did not feel like they were giving to something that no longer looked like what they envisioned. Director Rortvadt also thought that the donors wanted to know that this project was being carried out in a fiscally responsible way and the city was doing its best to keep within the budget.
[Honestly, it’s a little frustrating to see just how much they have been able to cut when they were put in a position in which they absolutely needed to cut things. If they had been looking this hard at keeping costs down 5 years ago, the project would probably not have been as controversial and we could have gotten a larger building than we are now going to get and at a much more reasonable price than we are currently going to get. It really makes one wonder if cutting things in other areas is really as hard as the city claims or if there are tons of ways to save money that they simply aren’t looking at.]
The second information item the board received was an update on the city’s budget process. The budget which included the library project had been approved with no changes. There had not been any questions about the building project during the budget process, although there had been some indirect questions about the parking lot. The library was in charge of snow removal from the parking lot and the funds for that had been put into its budget. They were hoping for some good years in which they did not need to spend the full amount they had been funded.
The main questions about the library had been about why the library needed as much staff when they were operating in a smaller space. Those questions had given library staff the opportunity to explain that operating out of a temporary retrofitted Best Buy that is about a third of the normal library space was actually more complex and difficult than using their regular space.
The budget would be brought to the Library Board in December so that they could approve it. Although they did not have the authority to decide how much the community was taxed for the library, they did have to approve the money in order to have expenditure authority over it.
The third update they received was about the hiring process. They had recently conducted interviews for several positions and had sent out offers. Assistant Director Tasha Saecker told the board that the pool of candidates had shrunk since the summer. The quality of the candidates was still good, but the quantity had decreased substantially.
The fourth update pertained to the Friends / F. P. Young Scholarship. Because the Community Foundation had changed their distribution year cycle the library had decided that rather than doing a very small prorated scholarship which would only last for half the normal time, they decided to postpone that until next year at which point they could give a larger scholarship.
Finally, the board briefly reviewed the Friends of APL Grant Funded Program summary.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=920203&GUID=4C38D9C3-C236-4710-BACD-F736BD3461FF
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