Sugar Grove officials hope new library spurs change in voters
Sugar Grove Library officials hope once residents get to see and use their new library they will be more willing to raise taxes to run it.
"I would love to provide this community with more than what we can give them" right now, library director Beverly Holmes Hughes said.
For the ninth time, voters last week refused a tax increase to operate the library.
If successful, the cost would have added about $100 annually to the tax bill of an owner with a $300,000 home.
"It was disappointing in terms of knowing the full potential of the library," Hughes said.
Once upon a time, the library was open on Monday mornings and Wednesday nights. Now you have to wait until 2 p.m. on a Monday to check out a book, and the doors close at 5 p.m. Wednesday. You can't use it after school on Fridays, because it shuts at 2 p.m. And unlike most other libraries in the area, you can't go there at all on a Sunday afternoon.
Even if voters had approved the tax increase, it wouldn't have kicked in until spring 2010. The next election at which taxes could be raised is a primary in early 2010.
As a result, library officials have been looking for ways to cut operating expenses - including cutting hours again - even as they plan to open a new building this summer. Hughes said she expects a decision on revamped hours in May.
Salaries, materials, supplies, maintenance, insurance and utilities are all paid for with property taxes. All those expenses are expected to increase once the library moves from its 6,000-square-foot facility on Snow Street to one four times as large on Municipal Drive.
For example, with more computers, Hughes expects to pay $600 to $800 more a month for the library's Internet connections.
And bodies will be needed to staff the separate circulation, adult reference and youth services desks, as well as oversee the computer laboratory. Presently, those are handled at one station.
The library is considering using volunteers more.
People are being asked, via a survey on the library's Web site and on forms at the library, what days and hours they want the library to be open.
The library is open 47 hours a week. In contrast, neighboring Town and Country Library in Elburn is open 67 hours, and Messenger Public Library in North Aurora is open 68 hours.
The library has one full-time employee and 13 part-time employees. Guidelines from the Illinois Library Association call for three more full-timers, with master's degrees in library science, for a library the size of the new one, Hughes said.
Art Morrical, library board president, hopes voters will have a change of heart once they begin using the new building. "There are 770 that voted for it. We look forward to putting a new library together, so all can appreciate and see the needs for a new operational rate increase."
Morrical has helped form a Facebook group, "Fans of the Sugar Grove Public Library," to drum up support for the cause among the 1,278 people who voted against the increase.
"Once they see the building, they will understand differently," Hughes said.