by Steve Kim
Ridgewood NJ, Ridgewood Library had a different, more pragmatic renovation plan prior to 2018. That plan was deemed sufficient to address the future service needs of the Library. In the 2018 library trustee meeting minutes, the architect mentions that plan would cost $5 million. That plan matches the alternate plan mentioned at this year’s meeting at Village Council: $4 million for the library. $1 million was probably for squaring the auditorium, which the alternate plan doesn’t include.
The 2017 NJ Library Construction Act was a perceived game changer. A generational boon. That Act consisted of a State referendum of $125 million which would be used as one for one match with local funding. Seeing the passage of the Act, the Library admins went back to the drawing board and decided to re-reimagine with the hopes of grant money. The tweaking and adding of items nearly doubled to cost to $7.7 million.
Unfortunately, grant money was not in hand. In fact the NJ grant act was a program with a dollar notional but no regulation. It took another two years for the rules to be drafted, which was published last month.
The defined regulations focus primarily on two things. First is to improve access, particularly ADA compliance. Building codes have changed but many libraries have not kept up to date. Second is to uplift the areas that are challenged in terms of socioeconomics.
Also, the Act regulation is written to grant funds by projects, not by libraries in totality. It asks libraries to rank order projects by importance and I assume the grants will be prioritized in a similar way at the State level.
Another key fact is that there was a survey done middle of this year of NJ libraries on intent to apply, and the indicated demand amount added up to three times the available pool and that demand was growing, indicating full match, or even half match, to be highly unlikely.
If the prior, less costly plan was sufficient, what does the larger re-reimagine plan offer? The main difference is to guide light to the lower floor. It does so my adding a skylight and a circular staircase. Negative is the circular gap takes up a chunk of space right in the middle of the floor, making the area inflexible in terms of function.
As for funding, the head of the library admitted that it would do best efforts fund raising and later ask the Village to fill the gap. If this was the case, residents could have been on the hook for $6 million in debt. Maybe more. Concerned residents challenged that approach. Then the library admins said they would ask for $2 million bonding. It would raise $2 million and apply for $3.7 million in grant. They would then scale the project based on what amount of grant is received. At $2 million bonding, it’s an effective assessment of $275 or so per household.
Another way is for the library to raise funds via private donations and get the match funding and go with the alternate plan. This has zero tax impact to the residents. Library admins have resisted this as a viable option.
Question then is what do the residents want. Do we need the souped up version, or the pragmatic? To figure this out, I submitted an OPRA request of the user survey done in 2013 and read every page (250+). The results of that survey indicated that the users care about services. Facilities issues were nearly nonexistent.
This evening, Village Council will vote on the Library Reimagine bonding resolution. For this to pass, 4 of 5 members need to vote ‘yes’. I hope the members do their homework and not take the Library admins’ words at face value.
Oh, and there are other issues such as the Library being shut down for 18 months and limitation of parking, whether the outside of that building can be pushed out given zoning, historic, etc etc… I will spare you other stuff like the admins lying at a VC meeting and later being caught, and noncompliant designation of funds. At this point, I can write a comic book on this.