In second round of state library funding application process,
city will stress its strengths
Morgan Hill library supporters have their work cut out for them
in the new year as they renew efforts to win state bond money to
build a new facility and at the same time get an early start to
extend a library parcel tax that expires in two years.
In second round of state library funding application process, city will stress its strengths
Morgan Hill library supporters have their work cut out for them in the new year as they renew efforts to win state bond money to build a new facility and at the same time get an early start to extend a library parcel tax that expires in two years.
Morgan Hill this month lost out in the first round to get a share of $350 million the state will award for library construction. Now, they are honing their presentation to compete with libraries around the state – including Hollister – in round two, the application deadline for which is March 31, and, if necessary, the third funding period in January 2004.
“We’re going through all the successful applications and planning to incorporate a lot more about our own strengths in our next application that we didn’t talk enough about the first time,” said Steve Tate, a Morgan Hill city councilman and chairman this year of the joint powers authority that operates the county library system. “I’ve found 20 to 30 things not in our application that we already do or can easily do.”
Morgan Hill’s 14,000-square-foot library has been squeezed to the point of suffocation as the population increased five-fold from the 7,000 residents there in 1973 when the facility was built. The library also serves residents in surrounding unincorporated neighborhoods.
The city hopes to receive $13.2 million from Proposition 14, which was approved by voters last year. The city would contribute around $7 million as the local share toward a 40,0000-square-foot replacement.
Morgan Hill tended to hide its light under a bushel basket, Tate said, while other libraries across the state that were competing for hard-to-come-by construction dollars spoke at length about their plans.
“A computer lab that we had planned for our indoor recreation center that would involve young people teaching senior citizens was moved to the library, but we didn’t mention it,” Tate said. “We’re also going to speak more about the technology components in our library. We’re going to talk about a television studio for school district use and how we’re going to be wired for high technology uses.”
Although Morgan Hill’s bid for first-round funding to build a new library was turned down by the state Public Library Construction and Renovation Board on Dec. 2, the city made a good showing, Tate said.
The Morgan Hill application received three “very good” and one “outstanding” rankings in four categories. The state board ranks funding requests on age and condition of the existing facility, location, how well programs meet community needs and how well they meet the needs of modern technology.
Only applications ranked outstanding overall were awarded construction money in the first round, Tate said. Applicants had to have at least three of four outstanding categories to attain the top ranking.
Morgan Hill was rated outstanding for its location and ease of access and very good in the other areas. The only way it could have gotten an outstanding rating on its library would have been to have no library at all, he said. The only communities rated outstanding in that category, indeed, had no library.
“We’re going to make sure we incorporate the ideas that paid off for other applicants as well as emphasize our strong points,” Tate said. “We’re going to put more emphasis on items that we got lot of credit for, like the counseling available at the library for parents who home-school their children. No one else has that service as far as I could determine.”
In the first funding period, $150 million were allocated. The second round will award $110 million and the third, $90 million.
On the other local tax front, a community group is scheduled to start its campaign in support of renewing the parcel tax, currently $33 annually, at the end of the month. Tax revenue goes 70 percent for salaries, 20 percent for books and the remainder for overhead.
Tax revenue remains in the community that generated it, said assistant county librarian Julie Farnsworth.
Although the levy doesn’t expire until 1995, a ballot measure is scheduled to be placed on the March 2004 ballot in case it doesn’t garner the two-thirds majority required and a second effort is necessary, Tate said.
The county library system includes nine cities — Morgan Hill, Gilroy, Milpitas, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Cupertino, Saratoga, Campbell and Monte Sereno. The remaining six county cities operate their own libraries.
All county libraries have been getting extra use, following a trend that never fails – library patronage increases during an economic downturn, according to Farnsworth.
Circulation – the number of books, magazines and audio materials that are checked out – has increased 20 percent in the past two years, from 7.1 million to 8.5 million items a year, Farnsworth said. Current circulation at the Morgan Hill library is 512,000 items annually.
