FAYETTEVILLE -- The public library's plan to ask Fayetteville taxpayers to help pay for improvements is likely headed to the City Council this month, the library director said Wednesday.
Director David Johnson said library supporters turned in petitions with about 500 signatures this week calling for an election on increasing the library's 1-mill property tax temporarily to 3.7 mills. The rate would eventually drop to 2.5 mills under the plan.
Meeting information
Fayetteville City Council
• When: 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 17
• Where: Room 219, City Hall, 113 W. Mountain St.
The vote would come in a special election Aug. 9.
Library leaders have said the change would allow the facility to expand library space and boost services for years to come. Plans include a new youth and genealogy wing and public event space.
Leaders hope to bring the question to the council's meeting May 10, which sets the agenda for the May 17 meeting.
"This community is loving the library to death," Johnson said during a meeting Wednesday morning on the possible shape of the expansion.
He echoed years of warnings the growing number of patrons and increasing demand for material and programs is outpacing the decade-old facility's revenue.
"Ten years in, eleven years in, we're at capacity," he said.
The 2.7-mill increase would cost property owners an additional $54 a year for every $100,000 worth of property, raising millions of dollars annually to pay off construction bonds and cover more operations.
Johnson and architect Jeffrey Scherer, who designed the library and is leading the expansion design process, also said they're increasingly optimistic the library will be able to expand onto the neighboring City Hospital land, a deal that's been tied up in court. A six-judge panel of the Arkansas Court of Appeals last week affirmed an earlier Court of Appeals ruling allowing the library to purchase the land from Washington Regional Medical Center for $2 million.
Descendants of the family who gave the land to the city a century ago have contested Washington Regional's ownership of the land and ability to sell it. A simultaneous appeal to the state Supreme Court is pending, and the high court's decision on whether to review the case or let the appellate court's decision stand could come today.
Jane Stone, a descendant who has spoken for the group contesting the sale, said Wednesday she intended to take the case as far as possible.
"If the result of the appellate process is that there is no meaningful oversight of a trust after the grantors die, perhaps this case will serve as a cautionary tale to potential donors of major gifts," she wrote in an email.
If the land purchase goes through and the millage increase passes, the library would be able to add some 60,000 square feet under a plan Scherer described Wednesday. A new wing would extend south from the library's southwest corner, descending like stair steps along the existing slope.
A two-level youth services area would provide space for kids of all ages, and the genealogy space could perch above that area, Scherer said. The wing would turn to the east, with a large multipurpose room above new parking. The whole L-shaped wing could enclose an open plaza for concerts and other events.
Service stations would pop up around the library instead of a central service desk, and there would be more than one front door, Scherer said.
Scherer again stressed the plan is a tentative outline; more public meetings in July will add detail and the first official renderings. The fully realized design would come after the August election, he said. He also has a smaller plan in case the land deal falls through.
Construction could generally happen from 2018 to 2020, along with renovation and other improvements.
With Fayetteville's population projected to grow by tens of thousands in the next few decades, the city needs to decide how to handle growth while keeping quality of life high, Scherer added.
"The library is, I think, the benchmark of how to do that in Northwest Arkansas," Scherer.
NW News on 05/05/2016