A bond resolution to fund improvements to the Monterey-Tippecanoe Township Public Library was tabled by the Pulaski County Council Monday. The measure would let the library borrow up to $475,000, although it’s hoped the actual amount will end up being closer to $385,000.
Library Director Renita Potthoff said the main issue is moisture and drainage in the 100-year-old Carnegie building. “Everything is going to have to be pulled out and waterproof the whole building,” she explained. “We have drainage issues. We’re not sure if we need a new well.”
Potthoff presented council members with some updated figures on the bond’s anticipated impact on taxpayers. She said the aim is to bring the property tax rate back to around where it was last year. “So actually, what we’re looking at is an increase of 0.0023 cents, which is less than a fourth of a cent, over the 2017 rate,” she said. “But it is a 0.0271, just a little bit over two cents, increase from the ’18 rate because it went down last year.”
Several Monterey-area residents and others voiced their support for the improvements, but others were still concerned about the financial arrangement.
Council member Linda Powers said that while she wasn’t opposed to the bond issue, she would like to see the library adopt some sort of maintenance schedule. “There have got to be plans in place to start doing little bits of repair work all the time, a one-year plan, a five-year plan, a 10-year plan,” she said. “It’s business. That’s how business works, and that’s what should be done. So I’m in favor of something like this, but just like anything else, you’ve got to have a plan in place, too, to follow it.”
Council member Ken Boswell noted that since the closure of Monterey Elementary School, the library has become the anchor of the town. “If we’re going to keep the service in Tippecanoe Township of the library, then we need to make sure that we keep ahead on the building because if that structure goes down, you’re not going to provide services, whether you want them there or not,” he said. “Even if for some reason something changed in there and you got a growth of people, you would then be putting up a new building or doing something that’s going to be a lot more costly to the taxpayers.”
Since only four of the seven council members were at Monday’s meeting, they decided to table the bond resolution, so it could hopefully be considered by the full county council next month. But they’ll have to act soon, if the library is to meet its goal of getting the bond sold and closed by the end of the year.
