Bartlett Library District voters choose renovation over replacement
Voters showed no signs of confusion in supporting a $22.2 million renovation and expansion of the Bartlett Public Library building over a $45 million replacement.
According to unofficial results, about 56% of voters supported a proposed renovation of the 43-year-old library building at 800 S. Bartlett Road.
But nearly 60% of voters rejected a separate question on whether a new library building should be constructed just north of the existing library, unofficial results show.
The potential for voters to be confused by the presence of two mutually exclusive questions was something the library board wrestled with over the summer. But the majority of trustees believed residents deserved the choice and could be educated to understand it.
“We are very pleased with the results of the referendum,” library board President Peggy Deyne said Wednesday. “I trusted our voters to read both items on the ballot, and we made sure that mailers hit mailboxes well before Election Day to include the early voters.”
While voter rejection of both options was a possibility, trustees also discussed the potential of both questions being approved, leaving them to further deliberate on their authority to do either.
Library Director Karolyn Wessel said this summer that either option would take more than two years to complete, with different impacts to ongoing operations in the meantime. If a new library were built, the old one would be demolished when it was done.
The board’s next meeting is scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 19.
“Next steps will be for us, the board, to get together with the company that helped us put the referendum together and actually find out next steps,” Deyne said. “As for right now, we will wait for the guidance they give us.”
The renovation and expansion had been estimated to increase property taxes by about $118 for 20 years for the owner of a $400,000 house in the DuPage County part of the district, and add about $98 per year to the tax bill of a house of similar value in Cook County.
A new building was estimated to increase property taxes on a $400,000 house by about $238 annually in the DuPage portion of the district and by about $199 per year in Cook County.
epeterson@dailyherald.com