Duane Hicks
With town council having voted down the proposed contract for the new Fort Frances Public Library and Technology Centre on Monday night, library board members are left questioning if the project will ever happen at all.
Library board chair Joyce Cunningham said Monday evening after the meeting she felt the project, which was to see a 13,622 sq. ft. single-storey building built next to the Memorial Sports Centre, is “dead.”
“Last Monday [after the budget meeting], I said that if it was defeated, there would be a few tears. There have been some already right here now, there will be more,” she noted.
“I am extremely disappointed with what has happened.
“The community deserves to have a new library, and we had such a good chance of getting a wonderful library and technology centre for this community,” Cunningham added.
While council has claimed the town’s share of the $4.7-million project is too costly, Cunningham said the library building committee had worked very hard on the latest proposal—and did everything it could to keep costs down while maintaining the integrity of the project.
“I have no idea what else could be done,” she remarked. “I don’t have any regrets about trying. I really don’t even have any regrets about having worked on this since 1995.
“I think I can go home now and say to myself I have done everything I could possibly do.
“Sometimes you lose some battles,” she reasoned. “A former politician said one time, ‘I am too old to cry, but it hurts to laugh.’
“Right now, I don’t think I am too old to cry,” Cunningham lamented.
From a political point-of-view, she questioned council’s decision to not go ahead with a project which, back in early 2007, received a $1.6-million grant from the Ministry of Culture.
After all, the province has been giving out more and more money towards the growth and development libraries in Ontario—recognizing their importance while at the same time trying to stimulate the economy and provide jobs.
“The McGuinty government cares about things like this,” Cunningham said. “In these times, particularly, money should be used as it as intended to be used.”
Library board member Arlene Georgeson, who also has been working on the project since about 1995, said she was “disappointed by the seemingly short-sightedness of council.”
“I would like to remain optimistic that Fort Frances both needs and deserves another opportunity to improve the library’s status,” she said. “I can’t see us continuing on in the building we are in.
“I have to be optimistic we will still have opportunities available to us, and I have to say my only hope is, with this door closing, it will reveal a better one.”
Like Cunningham, Georgeson said the library building committee has done everything council has wanted, such as reducing the square footage of the library to the point where it is at less than the provincial standard, and now feels the “ball is in council’s court.”
As a side note, Georgeson pointed out that major library projects are proceeding, or at least being considered, elsewhere in Ontario. One example is a $3-million, 10,000 sq. ft. archival centre being proposed as an addition to the Sault Ste. Marie Public Library.
If a new library proceeds here, but in a different form than that proposed by the library building committee, it also raises several questions about funding, said Georgeson.
For example, the wildly successful “Building for the Future” fundraising campaign saw district residents pledge more than $850,000 to the new library and technology centre.
Georgeson said the board was almost certain that if the proposed project got the green light, it would see even more pledges come in.
But if people who’ve already
donated do not want to see a scaled-down version built, will they pull their money out?
“What happens to the income tax? If you’ve made a five-year donation and been claiming it for the past two years, what happens with that?” she wondered. “I have no idea.”
Similarly, there continues to be conflicting opinions between the library board and members of council as to whether the $1.6-million grant from the Ministry of Culture must be used towards the new library as it has been proposed, or whether it can be used for a different, new library or even to renovate the old one.
“It’s a fine line and the provincial government may be the one that makes the decision,” said Georgeson. “I would like to say we can hold onto everything until all possible avenues are pursued.”
“Building for the Future” chair Mark Kowalchuk said he felt Monday’s vote showed council “turned its back on the project, and in so doing, turned its back on the community.”
“This had all the potential of really making Fort Frances stand out and attracting a lot of business down the road. That opportunity is now lost,” he lamented.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, never to be repeated.
“I think town council has done some serious damage here.”
As campaign chair, Kowalchuk saw many people show their support for the project with the wallets during the course of the campaign.
“They thought long and hard about those dollars, whether they were a few or many, and they were looking at it as a way to improve our community,” he remarked.
In a written statement yesterday, Kowalchuk thanked Couns. Andrew Hallikas and Sharon Tibbs for voting in favour of the library, but hoped the rest of council would rethink their decision, adding “there may still be a very small window of opportunity to build the library-technology centre as designed.”
“If, after council’s decision to kill the project, they realize the full financial and political implications for now and many years to come, this project could still move ahead,” he reasoned.
“At a time when governments in Canada and around the world are investing heavily in infrastructure, in order to turn the economy around, our mayor and council did the opposite and decided not to invest in the library-technology centre project.”
The importance of libraries and their power in making vibrant communities is in the news on a daily basis, Kowalchuk added.
“The library-technology project represented an innovative opportunity to foster new business in town, create new opportunities for attracting greater investments in our community, and the chance for Fort Frances to stand above all the other communities in Canada that are struggling and trying to find some way to set themselves apart in order to become more viable,” he argued.
“Even after [Monday] night’s vote, I am hopeful that the mayor and council will realize the extreme negative impact of the ‘no’ vote and will call an emergency meeting to rescind the vote for the long-term good of Fort Frances.
“In closing, I would like to say how proud I am to have worked with so many in the community and beyond to see Fort Frances get a new library-technology centre,” Kowalchuk said.
“It is a shame that council did not share the community’s vision for a stronger Fort Frances.”
