By PAUL BOOTH
The Tinton Falls Borough Council got its first glimpse Tuesday night of what a newly constructed $6.8 million library could look like on the site of the former borough hall.
The proposed library, at 25,800 square feet, is eight times larger than the borough’s current 3,000 square foot structure and would cost $6.8 million in brick and mortar construction, explained project architect Dennis Kowal. If the project were approved and bonded, it could be completed by 2011.
Kowal, of Dennis Kowal Architects in Somerville, told the council that the average library for a community of Tinton Falls’ size would fall in the range of 24,000 to 27,000 square feet and repeatedly described the borough’s current library as woefully inadequate.
“Don’t get me wrong, your library board and director are doing a great job making due with what they have, but they deserve more,” Kowal said. A library, he told the council, is considered a community center and “one of the few buildings in a town designed to be used by all segments of the population.”
Kowal explained that his design would incorporate many aspects he felt the residents desired, including an organic building with a sustainable design, community activity and speaking rooms, and a central meeting area. “We tried to meet all your design needs and concerns in 25,000 square feet,” he told the council.
When it was their turn to address Kowal regarding the proposal, the council had fewer questions about the particular design than about cost and funding.
“The problem is, we don’t know all the costs associated with running this kind of library,” said council president Michael Skudera, mentioning deferred maintenance costs as one unknown. “I’ve been asking for months but I haven’t been able to get them. We need to get these numbers together to understand the yearly impact.” Kowal could not give specifics on maintenance costs.
Councilman Paul Ford wondered whether it would be better suited to put the question to the residents in the form of a referendum, rather than a bond vote by the council. Additionally, Ford pointed out, the decommission of Fort Monmouth could offer the borough an opportunity to build a library at far less cost. “We might as well put that on the table now,” he said.
“We have asked for nine parcels of land from Fort Monmouth,” said Mayor Peter Maclearie. That land, he said, could be part of an 80,000 square foot downtown project which may include a 20,000 square foot library. The mayor expressed hope that such a project could be built with a significant portion of private funding. The closing date for Fort Monmouth is September 2011, though the mayor said there is talk of possible early conveyance of some parcels of land.
The debate revolved almost exclusively around economics. Although the borough’s Chief Financial Officer Steven Pfeffer reported earlier in the evening that the borough’s revenues were equal to or better than expected, he sounded a somber tone for the future as he described the note market as “dead for municipalities.”
“At the moment we are better than we anticipated,” he said, but with the collapse in the bond market he described the future as uncertain. “I’ll keep you posted as it plays out on Wall St.”
“We’re in scary times,” said Councilman Ford. “New Jersey might not be far behind California, where that state can’t pay their bills. We have to be careful about spending.”
Tinton Falls resident Carol Redfern agreed. “People are losing their jobs, their homes,” she said. “Some people can’t afford food and we want to spend $6 million on a library? We’d all want a beautiful library like that, but that’s not right.”
For the moment, the council seems content to bide their time and weigh their options concerning a new library for the borough.
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