Stories in this Regional News Roundup are excerpted from weekly newspapers from around the region. This is part two, with part one having appeared in Saturday’s Tribune.
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MCCALL, Idaho — The cost to complete an in-progress expansion of the McCall Public Library could require the McCall City Council to find another $1 million for the project.
The expansion project, which began last fall, needs about $950,000 in additional funding to pay for further engineering costs and final phases of construction, according to current estimates.
The project is fully funded through September 2024, but the council will soon be faced with removing work from original plans or finding more money to cover the costs.
“I’m pretty optimistic that we’ll see our way through that,” McCall Mayor Bob Giles said. “We’re so close. It’s a very small percentage of the whole budget.”
Overall, the cost of the library expansion is now estimated at $11.8 million, or about 9% more than the $11.1 million maximum price the council approved in May 2022.
City officials are hopeful that half of the funding shortfall could be covered by a $500,000 grant through the Idaho Commission of Libraries.
“We should know in a couple of weeks if we receive those funds,” City Treasurer Linda Stokes said.
Meanwhile, the McCall Public Library Foundation aims to raise another $200,000 to support the project, adding to the current total of about $1.9 million raised for the library expansion.
“Our community is excited about the new library and the foundation is committed to aligning funders with the opportunity to help,” said Amy Rush, the foundation’s fundraising coordinator.
If those efforts are successful, the council would be left with a $246,000 funding gap to make up by October 2024, the start of the city’s budget year for 2025.
The extra costs are tied to $150,000 in additional engineering fees and $800,000 in work that was not included in the expansion contract awarded by the city due to high construction costs.
“We pulled a lot out of the original project, knowing that we had funding issues,” McCall Public Works Director Nathan Stewart said.
That includes an estimated $243,000 to put a new roof on the existing library, which is being remodeled and incorporated into a two-story expansion building as part of the project.
Other costs include $93,000 to pave a parking area south of the library, $39,000 for a balcony pergola, and $200,000 for furniture, fixtures and equipment in the expanded library.
The work could be left out of the expansion project, but Stewart cited contractor mobilization cost savings and reduced public inconvenience as benefits of completing the work with the main expansion project.
“Some of these decisions are sitting on the sidelines depending on cost overruns or cost savings,” he said.
Overall, the city has about $10.9 million of the estimated $11.8 million project cost funded.
The largest funding source for the expansion project is a $4.2 million bond that was approved by McCall voters in May 2021, at which time the project was estimated to cost $7 million.
The 69% cost increase of the project since the bond election has been mostly attributed by city officials to inflated costs of construction and materials following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Plans call for the existing library, which was built in 1972, to be expanded from about 4,000 square feet to about 16,000 square feet.
The lower floor of the completed library will feature a service desk, work areas, storage, a children’s activity area and retail space for the Friends of the Library group.
The first floor will also include a storefront for the city’s recreation department to loan out equipment and assist citizens with program registration.
A new Community Hall will double as city council chambers and a free meeting venue for other community uses.
— Drew Dodson, The Star-News (McCall), Thursday
Petition to dissolve library certified
DAYTON, Wash. — The second petition submitted to put a proposition to dissolve the Columbia County Rural Library District on the November ballot has been certified.
The Columbia County Auditor’s Office found 163 signatures of the 186 submitted on the petition were from qualified voters registered in the county’s unincorporated areas. Petitioners needed at least 107 qualifying signatures, representing 10% of registered voters in the unincorporated areas of the county to be certified.
The library board directors received notice of the certification from Auditor Will Hutchens on July 24.
The board must now prepare a draft resolution to put the issue on the ballot. Library Board Chairperson Jay Ball will call a special meeting of the board after attorneys review the document.
The board has until Aug. 9 to submit the resolution to be included on the general election ballot.
At the July library board meeting, there was confusion by some in the audience as to whether Jessica Ruffcorn would take back the petition after news that the library was moving the Young Adult nonfiction section. Once a petition has been submitted to the county auditor, it cannot be retracted.
Ruffcorn and a group of residents decided the petition and possible dissolution of the library district was their only option after they disagreed with the outcome of 10 requests for reconsideration filed in September 2022. The library director received the 10 requests for review, which listed only seven specific titles. These were books written for young and adult readers about race and LGBTQ topics.
After reviewing the requests under the library’s collection development policy, the books remained in the collection. One book was appealed to the board, which decided to support the director’s decision.
There have not been any other requests for reconsideration filed since then.
Should voters decide to dissolve the rural library district, all library materials will go to the state library. Other assets must be sold, and the building will go back to the city.
— Lane Gwinn, The Times (Waitsburg), Thursday
