OCR Text |
Show City Council Makes Move to Attempt To Re-Purchase Library Building At the meeting of the City Council last Thursday a decision was reached to make an attempt to re purchase the public library building from the local Elks lodge, and to continue operation of the library at its present site. City Manager Thomas Thorsen was authorized to confer with the officials of the Elks lodge to arrange, if possible, a plan for recovering the property. It is assumed as-sumed that the city would pay the Elks the amount the lodge had paid to the city, plus the cost of repairs that have been made by the organization, and interest on the investment. The building had been sold to the Elks to be converted into a lodrje hall, with the funds received re-ceived by the city to be diverted to building a new library building. build-ing. However, the funds available availa-ble were not sufficient to build a suitable library, necessitating bonding the city to raise additional addi-tional funds. Under present conditions con-ditions this was not deemed advisable, ad-visable, and since it would be necessary to vacate the library building by Jan. 1, 1952, the council decided, on a divided vote to attempt to repurchase the property. The councilmen favoring this plan, and the city manager, maintain that other city Improvements Improve-ments such as acquiring additional addi-tional water supplies and increasing in-creasing storage facilities, and the oiling of the streets of the city, are of greater importance to the city than the building of a new library building. They maintain that to make all of these improvements, including the providing of a new library, would place too much of a financial fi-nancial burden on the city, there fore they prefer to delay the library project until the city is in a more favorable financial position. None of them gave any indications of how long that would be. It is understood that the City Library board approves the action. ac-tion. William, Jones, chairman of the board, states that objections to the present building for a library site have been overcome by repairs, and that he feels that it is more important to meet water supply and street improvement improve-ment needs than to abandon the present library and building a new one. Mr. Thorsen reports that he has not yet conferred with the BPOE officers on the proposal, but that he will do so in the near future. |