If the people who use the Peoria Public Library system vote in April to improve it, the library’s $35 million bond referendum will pass, allowing the first major upgrade in a half-century.
Library director Edward Szynaka frames the referendum as a vote on Peoria’s quality of life and its intellectual infrastructure.
Peoria residents are at a “crossroads,” he said. “You say what kind of Peoria you want.”
More than half of Peoria residents have library cards, he said. That’s more people than vote in most elections. The list is current since they must renew the cards every two years.
About 1,600 people use the libraries daily, he said.
But the referendum is a risk, he acknowledged, coming at a time when electricity rates have soared and many people are feeling pinched.
There are two Peorias, he said, the poor and everyone else.
The poor need the library system for access to learning and computers. Their numbers are increasing rapidly.
Peoria School District 150 now lists 68 percent of its students as poor, based on their eligibility for a free or reduced cost lunch. Only a couple of years ago, the figure was 60 percent.
The other Peoria, of suburban lawns and upscale condos, usually can buy what it wants at Borders, Barnes & Noble, Circuit City and the like.
But Peoria can’t claim to be a progressive city without a modern library system open to all, the ultimate intellectual safety net. For that reason alone, the referendum should be approved.
The Peoria City Council, which controls the library budget, could have approved the library bond issue without a referendum, Szynaka said. But council members were fearful of being pilloried for voting for a tax increase.
Instead, they took the easy – some might say cowardly – way out and put the referendum on the ballot for the city elections on April 17.
If it fails, Szynaka said, the library is unlikely to get a second chance.
The $35 million will buy bonds to be paid back over 20 years. They will pay for a new building likely on Pioneer Park, to serve the northern section of Peoria, and fund an expansion of Lakeview Library, Lincoln Library and the main downtown library.
A property owner with a residence worth $100,000, and assessed at one-third of that sum, will pay $49 a year more in taxes if the referendum passes, Szynaka said. It would add 6 cents per $100 of assessed valuation to the tax rate.
The library has 82 jobs, and the city council doesn’t want to add any more workers, Roberta Koscielski, supervisor of grants coordination said. The system’s annual budget is about $6.9 million.
The upgrade will allow for more efficient operations, so no extra employees will be hired.
The downtown library, built in 1964 also to serve as a fallout shelter, is solid but the interior should be reorganized for greater efficiency, and the entrance moved nearer the parking lot, Koscielski said.
She and Szynaka discussed the library expansion in the downtown library’s third-floor board room. Its bookshelves are filled with ancient, crumbling volumes that were part of the library’s original collection: 19th century histories of England and Ireland, and the complete works of Voltaire, for example.
These antique books are not part of the library’s offerings, and the board wants to sell them, Szynaka said. He has no idea of their value, and whether they are rare or just old, but the collection will be evaluated, he said.
Another source of revenue for the library, philanthropy, has been ruled out for the expansion, he said, to avoid competing with other efforts including the riverfront museum.
But if the referendum passes, he said, the library would welcome charity, such as naming rooms after donors.
The library referendum campaign website offers complete details on the expansion plans.
--Elaine Hopkins
