No easy solution appears on horizon for library dilemma

Despite public sentiment expressed Monday night during New Kent’s Board of Supervisors meeting for rapid restoration of library services, or better yet a new library building, there appears to be no quick fix for Heritage Public Library.

And for now there seems to be no going back to the Providence Forge location forced to close a week ago due to deficiencies in the building’s electrical system.

Lee Tyson, chairman of the library’s 11-member Board of Trustees, told supervisors Monday night that repairing and upgrading the electrical system would cost an estimated $25,000.

“The trustees believe it would not be a prudent investment to upgrade the building,” Tyson told supervisors.

That leaves library officials with two options for restoring services, he said. One is to move the library with its 43,000 volumes to a single building in either New Kent or Charles City, the counties served by Heritage. The other is to create temporary separate branches in each county and split the library’s inventory.

Trustees prefer the latter, he told supervisors. Already, he said, trustees have opted to provide 39 staff hours per week in New Kent and 16 per week in Charles City if the temporary two-branch option is chosen.

Discussions are ongoing with officials in both counties concerning potential locations, Tyson added.

“We hope to have a solution within weeks rather than an extended period of time,” he said. “We realize this is a hardship on people who depend on the library, but we want to get this right.”

Tyson said trustees’ decision to close the library is not a ploy to force the counties into taking action on building new facilities.

“The health, safety, and welfare of our patrons and staff and preservation of the library’s collection are our only concerns,” he said.

Library staff continue to work at the Providence Forge location, he said. The library’s collection. which includes 38,000 books, is deemed safe, and New Kent sheriff’s personnel have stepped up patrols in the area, he added.

“[The library] is being operated,” he said. “It’s just not open to the public.”

An overflow crowd packed the Board of Supervisors’ meeting room. A dozen spoke during the meeting’s public comment session with some looking for supervisors’ help while others lobbied for a new library building.

“I miss it already, and it’s only been closed a week,” county resident Cynthia Hartmann told the board, noting the library has been a second home to her since she moved to New Kent two years ago.

“The first thing I did when I moved here was open a bank account. The second thing I did was get a library card,” she said.

Longtime county resident Hal Wallof told the board New Kent must have a library all its own and in a central location in the county.

“The needs of our growing population demand it,” he said.

Steve Harris, a five-year county resident, agreed, adding, “It’s time New Kent steps up and becomes its own entity and has its own library.”

But a permanent solution could be several years down the road. County Administrator John Budesky said a new library is included in New Kent’s five-year Capital Improvement Plan. For now, close to $5 million has been penciled into fiscal 2009-10 for a building in the 15,000 to 20,000 square-foot range, but no money has been budgeted. And paying for the structure depends on library officials raising a portion of the money before New Kent steps in with matching funds, he said.

“Those efforts might be temporarily on hold,” Budesky said after Monday’s meeting. “As soon as we get a temporary solution, we can work back toward a long-term solution.”

Then, even if the county moves forward with a plan to fund a new library in 2009-10, it will be at least another year before construction on the new facility is completed, he added.

Budesky told Monday night’s crowd there is little county officials can do since the library is an independent organization that is not managed by either New Kent or Charles City. He added, however, that New Kent’s legislative package presented to the state’s General Assembly seeks state dollars in helping to fund either a new library for New Kent or a joint venture with Charles City.