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Conversation kept circling back to one central point
during a question-and-answer session sponsored Monday (Nov. 17)
by a task force considering a joint library for Jackson County
and Southwestern Community College.
Several times throughout the meeting, member John Bunn read the
mission statement given to the Joint Library Task Force by
the Jackson County Board of Commissioners.
"This task force has been addressed with the charge of working
with architects and the public to ascertain whether a joint library
is feasible," Bunn said.
"The charge from the county commissioners is to examine the
feasibility of a joint library. Outside of that, I'm not sure
if we have any jurisdiction," Chairman Joe Rossano said.
If the group determines a joint library is feasible, county commissioners
would then work with the town of Sylva, Build Our Library Downtown
and others interested in having a library downtown, he said.
Audience members, however, repeatedly called the task force's
scope into question as they asked about alternatives to the proposed
joint library to be located on SCC's campus.
Downtown Sylva business owner Dottie Hoche was one of several
to express concern that county commissioners had created a "backwards"
time line by directing the task force to analyze the feasibility
of a joint library without considering other options.
With the task force's full energy directed towards plans for a
library at SCC, it would be impossible to gather information about
the possibility of building the library on another site, she said.
"How are you going to find out that answer in time? How could
(the joint-library plan) ever be reversed?" she asked.
Local businesswoman Dodie Blaschik said that county commissioners
set up the task force "as a compromise" to appease those
opposed to the joint-library proposal. She joined others in saying
that the commissioners' acceptance of the joint library is already
a done deal.
"$50,000 is a lot of money for a feasibility study for something
we already know is feasible," said Odell Thompson, a local
architect. "$50,000 could be better spent looking at sites
downtown."
Thompson worried that architects and consultants hired by the
task force would "draw pretty pictures" of the joint
library to win the public over before they had the opportunity
to consider other options.
Cullowhee resident Lou Spagna wondered about the "unintended
consequences" to the community of moving the library to SCC.
"Just because we can doesn't mean we should," he said,
quoting Robert Oppenheimer, the inventor who oversaw the creation
of the atomic bomb.
Spagna said he recognized that "A lot of our concerns need
to be addressed to county commissioners" since they are outside
the "very specific scope" mandated to the task force.
Another audience member recommended that the task force make an
early report to the county commissioners about the difficulties
and limitations they face in carrying out their duties.
Task force history shared
At one point during the question period, Bunn asked the audience
to consider how to go about making a difficult decision.
"You put it on someone else," he said, referring to
county commissioners' June 17 creation of the task force.
Reminding the audience of the limitations created by the task
force's restricted mandate, Bunn said he was bothered by the assumption
that task force members have already settled on the joint-library
idea. He said the group would not come to any conclusions until
the feasibility study has been completed.
"All of us feel that this is part of our civic duty,"
agreed task force member Linda Young. "We're in this for
the long haul. We're going to do the best job we can for the people
in Jackson County."
The task force has done its homework by reading the reports of
past library study committees, Bunn said.
"You have to start in 1999 to get the real background,"
he said, referring to a report compiled that year for the Fontana
Regional Library System by Philip Barton, a library design consultant.
Barton found the Sylva library's 6,400 square feet of space to
be severely limiting and predicted it would become "woefully
inadequate in 10 years' time," noting the library's lack
of public meeting rooms, computer infrastructure and Americans
with Disabilities Act accommodations, Bunn said.
The group has also read reports by a previous seven-member task
force composed of librarians from Fontana Regional and SCC. Meeting
from March to October 2002, that task force studied other joint-library
ventures in the United States, concluding that a joint library
could succeed. That group found that "While the (public and
college library) populations are different, the mission is the
same," Bunn said.
That previous task force recommended that an architectural firm
create conceptual drawings of the Jackson County joint project
and hold forums for public input, Bunn noted.
Since the county commissioners appointed the current task force,
those two recommendations have been incorporated into its duties.
The group has also conducted a survey of local residents that
generated 552 responses, and results will be included in next
week's Herald.
During its noon meeting next Tuesday, Nov. 25, the task force
will hear presentations by two architectural and consulting firms
that have submitted proposals to conduct the feasibility study,
Harvard Jolly Clees Toppe Architects of St. Petersburg,, Fla.,
and Moseley, Wilkins & Wood of Charlotte.
The task force plans to have the selected firm's report in hand
by Feb. 3, and anticipates making a written recommendation concerning
the feasibility of the joint library to the county commissioners
by March or April.
The group, comprised of Bunn, Rossano, Diane Schallock, Don Williamson
and Young, welcomes public input. The minutes of each of its meetings
are posted at the SCC and Jackson County libraries and are also
available from secretary Williamson at donjw@earthlink.net.
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