Council OKs library pact with schools
Deal clearing the way to close out $50.4 million project now awaits school board approval
BY TIM CHITWOOD
Photographed during an earlier phase of library construction, this aerial view outlines tracts of public property at the Columbus Public Library on Macon Road.
No provision for a public park is packed into a 13-point pact with the Muscogee County School District that Columbus Council unanimously approved Tuesday. But some councilors say the agreement plants the seeds for later development of a park-like expanse on land behind the Columbus Public Library on Macon Road.
The agreement council approved during its morning meeting now goes to the school board for a vote Monday. School board attorney Jorge Vega said once the board approves it, that opens the way for district leaders to say Columbus' $50.4 million library project finally is finished. After that, the city and school board can initiate a land swap according to the terms of the pact council just approved.
People representing the Education Park Coalition weren't so taken with those terms.
Speaking for the coalition that wanted a park paid for with library sales tax money, Josh McKoon said the group had sought three assurances in a compromise to resolve disputes over spending the last of Columbus' 1999 library sales tax funds:
• That $3 million be spent on a park-like expanse of greenspace on the remaining 23.7 acres of Macon Road land bought with library sales tax funds. The library site occupies 14 of the 37.7 acres of that property.
• That none of the property be declared surplus and sold off.
• That the property be reserved for public use, not for residential or commercial development.
"There's nothing in the memorandum about any three of those points," McKoon said Tuesday.
The agreement council approved is called a "memorandum of understanding" or MOU. It sets the goal of spending at least $3 million on landscaping around public buildings to be built on the library property, but specifically defines landscaping not only as trees, shrubs and grass, but also "hardscape" such as stone walls, brick patios, tile paths and wooden decks.
After Tuesday's meeting, Councilors Glenn Davis and Wayne Anthony said expanding the definition of landscaping gives the city more flexibility in using funds to remove pavement and prepare the property around the library not only for the other public facilities the city plans to build there, but also for a park-like expanse of greenspace likely to fall along the flood plain of Lindsay Creek.
"We knew we couldn't create a park with $3 million," Anthony said.
On Tuesday, council not only approved the pact with the school board but also voted on a final "needs list" from the library board that oversees the library construction. That list of needs allocates the last $6 million in revenue derived from the library sales tax local voters approved in 1999. It includes spending $300,000 for landscaping at the front of the library and $611,049 for landscaping behind the building.
Relieved to see they can proceed with their final purchases, library board members said after the meeting that they're ready to order more books and computers and spend $172,425 to design a $1.3 million children's "story telling plaza" at the building's rear.
That $1.3 million plaza is to count toward the MOU's goal of spending at least $3 million on landscaping around the library and other public buildings yet to be constructed. Other buildings include an aquatic complex for swimming competitions, a city service center where residents can buy car tags and conduct other city business, and a parking garage.
The MOU revises an agreement for a land swap the council and school board approved in March. It states that once the library project is deemed complete, all of the 37.7 acres once occupied by Columbus Square Mall will be transferred from the city to the school district, after which the district will give the city 6 acres on which to build the swimming complex, service center and parking garage. In exchange, the city will give the school district the 1.3-acre Firestone property the city bought for $643,300 in 2001, plus two parcels of vacant land on Veterans Parkway beside the Mildred Terry Branch Library.
Although the school district owns local libraries, the new library on Macon Road belongs to the city until its construction is complete, because the city collects and distributes the sales tax money that's paying for it. That's why the library board has to submit its budget requests to the council for approval, until the sales-tax-funded project is finished.
The Firestone building at 3120 Macon Road is to be demolished and the property landscaped. Local leaders have yet to decide what to do with two other tracts of land near the library -- about 15 acres at Macon and Rigdon Roads, once occupied by a Sears store and its parking lot, that the school district bought for $2.6 million in 2003, and 5.3 acres south of Lindsay Creek that the former Columbus Square Mall owners deeded to the city in 2000.