Brundidge library first draft complete
Published 10:00 pm Tuesday, June 2, 2009
The first draft for the addition to the Tupper Lightfoot Memorial Library has been received from the architect, and Brundidge City Manager Brit Thomas showed the draft to the council during Tuesday’s council meeting.
According to Thomas, the library board made a trip to the Luverne Public Library and liked some of the features.
“With the new plans, the building could end up being somewhere around 3,400 square feet,” Thomas said. “That’s almost doubling the size.”
Thomas said the city will have to wait and see how much this addition will add to the proposed budget.
At the request of the library board, the council voted to resend the approval to allow both card catalogs to be surplus property.
During the May 19 board meeting the council voted to allow for both card catalogs to become surplus property.
The library board asked the council to allow one of the card catalogs to be retained and the other to become surplus property.
The council also received a letter from Jaine Treadwell, a Brundidge Historical Society committee member who requested that if “the card catalogues are deemed of no use or value to the Tupper Lightfoot Memorial Library, the ‘surplus’ items would be of use and value to the Brundidge Historical Society.”
Still, City Manager Brit Thomas said there was word of an apparent barter situation, where a storyteller was to come and agreed to a card catalog for the fee.
“The fee is not going to be charged either way,” Thomas said.
But, Thomas advised the council to vote to allow this to happen if that’s the course they wanted to take, since the apparent barter situation was a deviation from what the council normally does with surplus property.
According to Thomas, the city usually lists surplus property on a Web site that allows the property to be auctioned off.
But this was met with strong opposition from councilwoman Cynthia Pearson.
“It’s not fair to the other citizens,” Pearson said. “I’m not for it.”
Ultimately, the council voted to resend its decision and keep both of them at the library.
The council also discussed options for the energy efficiency grant, and decided it to pursue a means to upgrade the wastewater treatment plant.
However, they were unsure of the best way to go about securing the funds.
The council has to submit a pre-application to the state by June 12, but Thomas said the council could change its mind on the actual application as to how it wishes to apply for the grant.
Thomas told the council it had a better chance of receiving the funds if it decided to allocate funds to match the grant, but there has also been talk of the government entities in Pike County working together to secure grant money for a revolving loan fund, which the city could access to help with the upgrades.