Town council will hold off making any decisions about proceeding with the new Fort Frances Public Library until it can first discuss the possibility of working with the Rainy River District School Board to combine the project with the building of a new Robert Moore School here.
During a budget meeting yesterday, mayor and council pointed out that since the library issue was last discussed March 24, the public school board has sent a letter to council regarding the possibility of a joint project.
Councillors felt they should at least meet with the school board to explore the idea, which may realize cost-savings for the town.
“What are we doing here? There is a body out there asking the Town of Fort Frances and library board to see if we can discuss a potential agreement to attach a library to Robert Moore School,” said Coun. John Albanese.
“Why are we denying a dialogue between the library board, council, and the school board. That’s all they’re asking for?” he added.
Coun. Paul Ryan said he only recently heard about the idea of the joint project, and after receiving a letter from Education Director Jack McMaster, felt it incumbent upon mayor and council “to at least pursue the overture and meet with these people and see if there are any synergies.”
“I know nothing about libraries and I’ll admit that right out,” Coun. Ryan said. “But I think the people out there that pay taxes in town expect us to at least look at every avenue before we just go ahead and build something.
“If there’s two new libraries being built in this town, then I think we should be talking to each other,” added Coun. Ryan. “I’m not going to sit here and not pursue this.”
When asked about prior contact with the school board about a new library, library board chair Joyce Cunningham said she, Mark Kowalchuk, and Margaret Sedgwick already had a brief discussion with McMaster, Laura Mills, and Raymond Roy last May.
“It was part of our discussion about how the two projects could get together,” Cunningham recalled. “It came to naught. It didn’t come back [to the library board] because there was nothing to report.”
Cunningham later elaborated that at that time, the library reps asked the school board if it would contribute financially to the campaign for the new library and whether it would allow school staff to donate to the campaign through payroll deduction.
The answer to both questions was “no.”
“What they wanted from us—at that point—was to explore the option of coming over to work with us, as I recall, at the site where we’re going to be, for a while, or else for us to join with them,” Cunningham added.
“At that point, I indicated to Mr. McMaster, Laura Mills, and Raymond Roy that we were about two years late in doing that, if we were going to work out a partnership.
“They said, ‘That’s too bad,’ and the meeting ended. Nothing was pursued by them from then on, until they started to talk to other people in the last two weeks and then phoned me.”
Coun. Ken Perry noted he currently sits on the library board, but if he had been a board member last May, he surely would have wanted to know about any meetings that took place.
That aside, he stressed the funding situation now is different and that a joint project at least warrants a discussion with the school board.
Last May, the funding for the library seemed to be in place and to add up to $3.9 million.
“As of this day, we’re $800,000 short,” Coun. Perry said. “If the school board can help us, first of all, build that library, and maybe make it bigger than what we’re looking at right now, and help look after that library for the next 50-60 years in the way of maintenance, cutting grass, plowing snow, caretaking and everything else, I think, as a taxpayer in this town, I want that to happen.
“I don’t want my taxes to double for two libraries, when it can be half as much for one, which is actually two libraries put together,” he added. “It’s a library. It can work.”
Coun. Perry later said he’s “worked his tail off to try and get a library here,” and believes there are other ways of getting it built than the current plans, which would see the town pay more than $1 million as its share.
“Now is the time. We can’t do it after we put the first shovel in the ground,” he stressed.
Mayor Roy Avis said he was not aware of any previous contact with the school board regarding a new library, but after hearing about the idea, and then receiving a letter from the school board regarding the matter, it’s only due diligence council meet with the school board and look into it.
While it’s always possible the idea of a joint library “might not go anywhere,” Mayor Avis added council “has to be responsible to the citizens and walk through that process,” as well as “satisfy our own minds” council is making the most prudent decision—whatever it may be.
“We’re only doing due diligence by following that path,” Coun. Ryan said. “We’ve got to report to the people, who will probably never use the library if it’s built, and say, ‘Yeah, we pursued every avenue.’
“If we don’t do this, and people come to us and say, ‘What about the school,’ we won’t have an answer for them. We’ll have an answer when we meet these people,” he added.
Coun. Rick Wiedenhoeft pointed out, however, that the joint project could end up costing taxpayers more than now. For instance, not sticking to current plans could jeopardize the $1.6 million grant received by the library board from the Ministry of Culture last year.
As well, most of the $520,000 worth of donations and pledges were given to the “Building for the Future” campaign on the assumption the new library would be built on the chosen site and that it would be built immediately.
If it doesn’t go ahead as planned, the donors may want to pull their money out.
Coun. Andrew Hallikas also noted that a “municipal library is a real depository of democracy, and open to all. Hopefully you don’t see a lot of censorship there.
“But in a school library, in particular in an elementary school library . . . the types of books they’re going to want for their students are not going to be the same types that adults are going to want,” he warned.
“In addition, schools tend to be a little more censorious of the types of books students are exposed to.
“There’s a fundamental difference between a municipal library and a school library, and if you combine the two, you are going to be getting into some sort of scenario where that sort of thing happens.
“That’s going to be a difficult to thing to work out,” Coun. Hallikas stressed.
On the same note, Fort Frances CAO Mark McCaig said that from his experience coaching youth athletics, there are issues of security with who can have contact with children when they are within school.
“I couldn’t see students there during school hours intermingling with the public population of the library. You would have to get clearance from every person,” he noted.
“I imagine you would have to have some physical separation in instances where there’s a partnership.”
Cunningham noted there’s many reasons why she feels the school/pubic library co-project isn’t feasible at this point in time, not the least of which is that the $1.6-million grant the library got from the Ministry of Culture last year was applied for, and received, on the basis the new library would be built on the chosen site (next to the Memorial Sports Centre) and it would be built as soon as possible—not with a partner and not several years from now.
She reminded council the library board already had to inform the province last year the project would be delayed until this spring because they did not want to start work during the winter construction period.
Cunningham also said that based on her experience in dealing with the school board in the past, she did not think the board “would be prepared to sit down and negotiate in a fair and equitable manner that would be necessary.”
“I’m basing that on the relationship the public library has had with the Rainy River District School Board over the past many years,” she remarked. “The relationship has been one-sided from a financial point-of-view.”
Apart from financial implications, Cunningham also said there are many difficulties in any partnership between a public and school library.
For example, public libraries and school libraries operate using two completely different library systems—the former using a joint-automated system, the latter using a basic system.
Other concerns include regulating public access during school hours and accommodating both public and student traffic, among many others.
In short, instances where pubic and school library partnerships have worked involved intensive planning from the start, she added. In the case of the new library, this joint planning should have started two-three years ago.
Cunningham added if council wanted the “long answer,” they should schedule a separate meeting for her to speak at.
Council ended up passing a motion to have administration contact the school board to arrange a meeting regarding the new library as soon as possible.
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
