MOSCOW — Moscow voters will be asked to approve a $495,000 bond levy for a library addition March 16 if the Moscow City Council agrees with a recommendation from the Latah County-Moscow Library Board.
The board’s public relations consultant from Boise said it should put the issue to the voters either in March or in October. Board president Margetta Foster of Deary said the board did not want to “drag” the drive for bond election for the length of nearly a year, so it opted for a March election.
The total cost of a new addition and remodeling in the headquarters library will cost about $625,000, Foster said. The board hopes to raise the balance of $140,000 through the $40,000 in building accounts it already has, and through fundraising and foundation grants.
The board is planning an informational meeting for the public Jan. 14, and is hoping to take the new city council for a tour of the headquarters library building sometime the first week of January.
Architect Nelson Miller should have sketches of the addition in January, Foster said. The library addition would be a separate wing, and would be attached by some type of corridor.
Moscow voters in recent years have supported bond elections for a new library. The 1977 bond levy election was approved by Moscow voters by more than a two-thirds majority, but because county voters defeated it in that election and again in June of 1978, the library was never built. At the time, the city would have contributed $400,000 to the building and the county would have contributed $200,000.
When library board members — who are selected from throughout the county for the Latah County-Moscow Library system — began talking of a bond election again this fall, they said it was the library’s turn. In 1978, two other public buildings in Moscow, the Old Post Office (Community Center) and the high school, were targeted for renovations, and both were seeking taxpayers’ money. Board members this fall said the library project had been on the shelf long enough.
This story was published in the Dec. 17, 1981, edition of the Lewiston Tribune.
