Library Board of Trustees

I MEETING OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES MARY RILEY STYLES PUBLIC LIBRARY Held in the Mary Riley Styles Public Library 120 N. Virginia Avenue Falls Church, VA 22046 January 22, 2014 1. CALL TO ORDER Board Chair Brad Gemand called the meeting to order at 7:34pm. The following board members attended the meeting: Brad Gemand ChetDeLong Nancy Bentrup Sally Phillips Ed Rose Excused Absence: Jeff Peterson and Don Camp Also present were Director Mary McMahon and her assistant Claudia Gutierrez. 2. RECEIPT OF PETITIONS None. 3. APPROVAL OF JANUARY 8, 2014 MINUTES The minutes of the January 8, 2014 meeting were not approved. A Board member, Jeff Peterson, had written the Chair asking him to relay his request that the minutes reflect the discussion about Option 2. The Board agreed and asked that the minutes be brought back to the next meeting and that they reflect wording/discussion about Option 2. 4. ARTS AND CULTURAL DISTRICT TASK FORCE (CATCH) REPORT None. 5. LIBRARY FOUNDATION REPORT None. 6. REVISED INTERLIBRARY LOAN POLICY- 1ST READING Upon a motion duly made and seconded, the Interlibrary Loan Policy was approved unanimously with no changes on its first reading. 7. FY15 BUDGET DISCUSSION AND ADOPTION The Director presented the Draft FY15 proposed library budget and told the Board that it met the 1.2% increase ($5,259) in operating funds allowed in the City Manager's and Finance Director's budget instructions. She explained that the salaries and benefit line items in the budget were not completed by her, but would be completed by Finance. The salaries and benefits (compensation) was not included in the 1.2% increase.  The draft FY15 budget is not very different from the FY14 budget since there is only a $5,259 increase allowed in the operating funds. The increase mostly was put into E-materials. Some changes included: Books down $2,500 to increase juvenile eBooks by that amount; Records and Tapes down $1,000 with a corresponding increase in eAudios; library periodicals down $250 with a corresponding increase in eMagazines; and an increase in adult eBooks in the Electronic Resources line along with increases due to inflation in the databases listed. As part of the budget work, each department was to list Unmet Needs. Those included: Substitute funds, $1 0,000; increasing the part time Young Adult librarian to full time due to the continued increased use in that department, $33,401; funds for more Zinio (eMagazine) titles, $500; additional monies for eBooks, $10,000; and additional monies for eAudiobooks, $10,000. Board members also asked to list the following: Books, $5,000; reopen Wednesday mornings (the Director said she would have to do the costs and insert them into the list); and increase Training, Conferences, and Travel, $1,500. The Board the prioritized the Unmet Needs list: 1. Sub funds, $10,000; 2. FT Young Adult Librarian, $33,401; 3. Reopen Wednesday mornings (cost to be determined and inserted into the letter that will be submitted with the budget; 4. Traditional books, $5,000; 5. eMagazine titles, $500; 6. eBooks, $10,000; 7. eAudiobooks, $10,000; 8. Training, conferences, and travel, $1,500. The Director stated that a cover letter from the Board would also accompany the budget and would itemize the priorities of the Unmet Needs. Upon and motion duly made and seconded the Board adopted the FY15 library budget including the section of prioritized Unmet Needs as amended and that a cover letter accompany the budget submittal. 8. LIBRARY REPORT AND ANNOUNCEMENTS The Director informed the Board that the water meter break that occurred on January 8, 2014, and reported twice to Fairfax Water is still not fixed. She also commented on the 3D printer program presented last Saturday at the Library was a success. Around 250 people of all ages attended the program. The installation of the 3D printer will be in mid-March. The policy will come to the Board on next meeting for consideration. It will have strict restrictions and must be vetted by the City attorney before implementation. The new schedule for the CIP hearings was slightly altered, and a copy of the new schedule was included in the Board packet. The Library has been working on the Library website redesign and determining how to improve it. The City's Office of Communication (OCOM) has contracted with CivicPlus to design the new City website which will be unveiled to the public on May 1. The Director announced that there is a possibility of an increase in State Aid by $1.5M. The proposed increase for the Library is from $142,000 to $156,000. The General Assembly is meeting to consider the state budget and the Virginia Library Association has asked libraries that have influential Senators who are on the Finance or Education Committee to contact them by email, personal letter, or visit urging them to vote for the increase. Since Senator Saslaw is on one of the influential committees, the Board was  encouraged to contact him by the end of next week. The Director announced that Councilwoman Karen Oliver has been appointed as the Library-Council liaison. She noted that an invitation for this evening's meeting had been sent to Karen, but since the Council was hold its meeting the same night as this one, she could not attend this meeting. 9. BUSINESS NOT ON AGENDA None 10. ADJOURNMENT There being no further business, upon a duly made and seconded, the Board of Trustees unanimously agreed to adjourn the meeting at 9:00 pm. Respectfully submitted, Mary W McMahon Library Director Approved: Bradley E. Gemand, Chair Copies: Board of Trustees, City Manager, Library Reference Desk, Staff Bulletin Board, City Clerk, City Council, Historical Commission, Library Web Page. Minority View of Jeff Peterson Member of the Mary Riley Styles Library Board of Trustees Concerning Proposal to Raze and Rebuild the Mary Riley Styles Library February 2, 2014 Over the past several meetings of the Library Board of Trustees I have been the only member of the Board to vote in opposition to several motions advancing the proposal to request City funding of $18 million to raze and rebuild the current library. In reviewing the minutes from the January 8 meeting, I note that discussion of this complex and important issue is brief and focused on the views of the majority, including concerns related to the alternate proposal for a $6.75 million addition to the existing library which I supported . The concerns that I have raised regarding the proposal to raze and rebuild, and the benefits of the alternate proposal, however, are not recorded. This statement describes my concerns with the project approved by the Board and the benefits of the alternate approach. I share the view of the majority of the Board of Trustees that the City of Falls Church needs a first-class library and that the current facility needs to be expanded and upgraded to meet projected increases in demand for diverse library services. I chaired the Space Committee of the Board of Trustees established to respond to the Dewberry Study report of library space needs in 2008 and I served on the panel that selected the contractor for the most recent library Draft Master Plan and Space Study. I also participated in all but one of the public meetings held by the contractor developing the Draft Master Plan. Concerns with Raze and Rebuild Option I have several concerns with the raze and rebuild option approved by the Board on January 8. 1) Razing Current Building Costly and Unnecessary: The Draft Master Plan calls for addition of 14,000 sq. ft. to the existing 18,000 sq. ft. of the library. Approximately $10 million of the $18 million cost of the raze and rebuild proposal adopted by the Board is for razing and rebuilding the existing building. Although the Draft Master Plan suggests that the current building needs some system improvements, there is no suggestion that the current building is unserviceable or needs to be razed (see Appendix H of the Draft Master Plan). Until this Draft Master Plan, there has been no discussion among the Board of Trustees of structural or other issues with the existing building that would require razing and rebuilding. The City has budgeted funds for system upgrades to existing building assets that could address the needed upgrades. As noted below, building an addition to the current library avoids the costs of razing and rebuilding the existing 18,000 sq. ft. of space. Acquisition of adjacent property needed for an addition would cost well under the $10 million devoted to replacing the current building (e.g. property to south is appraised by the City at $800,000 and property to the east is presently a large area of surface parking) . Initial drafts of the Library Master a major building plan that reduces parking without any commitment, or even response, from the City concerning the Board's stated expectation that some separate action will be implemented and funded to address the library parking needs. Finally, any substantial expansion of parking in the area that would be of use to the library will most likely be adjacent to the library. If the City is going to acquire land adjacent to the library for parking purposes, as the Board seems to expect, it could just as easily use part of that land for library expansion, thus avoiding the need to raze and rebuild the existing building. Proceeding with the raze and rebuild option without coordinating it with a wider parking solution is to put the building/cart before the parking/horse. Addition to Existing Library Option At the December 18 meeting of the Board of Trustees, Assistant City Manager Cindy Mestner reviewed issues related to the City Capital Improvement Program (CIP). Based on this discussion, the Board voted to submit to the City both a "preferred" raze and rebuild option and an alternate option. The alternate option approved by the Board would have used the $6.75 million now included in the CIP to fund an addition of about 10,000 sq. ft. to the existing library at the existing site to either the south or east. I voted against the raze and rebuild option but supported the alternate "addition" option. Some reasons to prefer the "addition" option are: • Substantially lower capital cost; • Funding already accounted for in the CIP; • Avoids relocation costs and other issues; • Avoids building non-essential library space (e.g.; 80 person "gathering space") • Avoids overbuilding on the existing site and retains scale of building to lot; • Retains existing parking (if expansion to south); and • Avoids a public referendum needed for very large capital spending projects. At the January 8 meeting, the Board reversed its decision to provide the alternate "addition" option to the City and decided to submit just the raze and rebuild option. The meeting minutes cite concerns among Board members with the "addition" option. These concerns as I understand them, and my responses, are: • Concern: Unworkable building configuration (i.e.: an expansion to the south would create a long building difficult to staff and not useful). Response: New space to the south could be effectively used for support or administrative services, rather than public space. The actual staff constraints of the proposed addition of 40 feet to the south have not been adequately explained (i.e.; why the most cost-effective manner possible. The raze and rebuild proposal includes significant costs for rebuilding the existing building and costs for relocation that could be avoided by building an addition. Costs could be reduced from $18 million to the $6 .75 million now available in the CIP by building an addition and reducing the new space from 14,000 sq. ft. to 10,000 sq . ft. without significant impact on the library program described in the Draft Master Plan and Space Study. The less expensive "addition" approach also avoids the uncertainty associated with a public referendum that would be required of the $18 million raze and rebuild option.