All that Glitters is not Gold

The City's Pulse Issue #18 July 19, 2007 by Mary Souza
All that Glitters is not Gold Coeur d'Alene has some new shiny jewels in town. The latest gem on display is the new Coeur d'Alene Library. It is almost complete and it is beautiful. I love libraries. This one will have a lot more room and twice as many books as the old library. It will have 60 computers, not the mere handful we have now. The new city council chamber will be in the library, along with all kinds of extras, including a central art piece, which is a very modern mobile above the foyer. But if you scratch the surface of this lovely building, it is also full of question marks. I bring these questions forward now, not to taint the fresh image of the new library, but to look at the process that our elected officials have followed to get this end product. The library is simply the most current example of the lack of public transparency in this city's decisions. Let's look at a few of the big questions: Location, location, location. This is the question that people all over CdA ask me: "Yeah, the new library is nice, but why is it downtown?" Access through our busy central core will be limiting. There have been multiple expert studies of downtown over the years, paid for with taxpayer dollars, that have all produced the same advice about the library -- don't put it downtown. Two seasoned high school teachers pulled me aside one day last winter to talk about the library. They were quite frustrated with the downtown location. They asked why it was not built near the new police station off of Kathleen Avenue, where land is much less expensive. It would have been close to both high schools, the charter school and several elementary/middle schools, with easy access and plenty of parking. "The kids will not go downtown to use the library", the teachers predicted. So, was it built downtown because Mayor Bloem was head of the Downtown Association for years and her business is there also? Or was it because the owners of McEuen Tower were concerned, as they stated in a letter to the city, that any tall building on the library property would block their views? Or was it because the city council wanted new digs and figured the public wouldn't approve a bond issue for a new city hall, but with the library next door they could add city areas into the new building? Then there's the Library Bond. We, the voters, were promised that if we approved the bond, we'd never have to pay more for the completion of the library. Remember that pledge? All the rest of the money was to be from private donations through the Library Foundation. The foundation did raise $3 million dollars, but they spent a full one-third on "expenses", so gave only $2 million to the library. The city council broke their promise and kicked in another $300,000, rather than scale back the size of the building. The latest figures show a total of $600,000 in extra taxpayer money in this building, with an additional $100,000 now requested. Plus the mayor tells us we might have to "find" another $1 million dollars because the old library isn't selling There are very informed people in town that think the cost of the downtown land for the library was greatly inflated. They think the library could have been built elsewhere in the city and well within the original budget. And there are more questions too. Why was a Spokane contractor hired to build the Coeur d'Alene library? Our tax dollars flowing across the border into Washington? And what about the large art centerpiece -- it's not from a local artist, it's from the East coast and, though it is beautiful, it doesn't look like North Idaho. So, yes, our new Coeur d'Alene jewels are lovely. But, Mayor and Council, we want more than bling. We want to understand how and why our tax dollars are being used. We are desperate for clarity in our governmental system and want the light to shine all the way through the decision-making. And we need to see you being responsible, accountable stewards of our money.

All that Glitters is not Gold

Coeur d'Alene has some new shiny jewels in town. The latest gem on display is the new Coeur d'Alene Library. It is almost complete and it is beautiful. I love libraries. This one will have a lot more room and twice as many books as the old library. It will have 60 computers, not the mere handful we have now. The new city council chamber will be in the library, along with all kinds of extras, including a central art piece, which is a very modern mobile above the foyer. But if you scratch the surface of this lovely building, it is also full of question marks.

I bring these questions forward now, not to taint the fresh image of the new library, but to look at the process that our elected officials have followed to get this end product. The library is simply the most current example of the lack of public transparency in this city's decisions. Let's look at a few of the big questions:

Location, location, location. This is the question that people all over CdA ask me: "Yeah, the new library is nice, but why is it downtown?" Access through our busy central core will be limiting. There have been multiple expert studies of downtown over the years, paid for with taxpayer dollars, that have all produced the same advice about the library -- don't put it downtown.

Two seasoned high school teachers pulled me aside one day last winter to talk about the library. They were quite frustrated with the downtown location. They asked why it was not built near the new police station off of Kathleen Avenue, where land is much less expensive. It would have been close to both high schools, the charter school and several elementary/middle schools, with easy access and plenty of parking. "The kids will not go downtown to use the library", the teachers predicted.

So, was it built downtown because Mayor Bloem was head of the Downtown Association for years and her business is there also? Or was it because the owners of McEuen Tower were concerned, as they stated in a letter to the city, that any tall building on the library property would block their views? Or was it because the city council wanted new digs and figured the public wouldn't approve a bond issue for a new city hall, but with the library next door they could add city areas into the new building?

Then there's the Library Bond. We, the voters, were promised that if we approved the bond, we'd never have to pay more for the completion of the library. Remember that pledge? All the rest of the money was to be from private donations through the Library Foundation. The foundation did raise $3 million dollars, but they spent a full one-third on "expenses", so gave only $2 million to the library. The city council broke their promise and kicked in another $300,000, rather than scale back the size of the building. The latest figures show a total of $600,000 in extra taxpayer money in this building, with an additional $100,000 now requested. Plus the mayor tells us we might have to "find" another $1 million dollars because the old library isn't selling

There are very informed people in town that think the cost of the downtown land for the library was greatly inflated. They think the library could have been built elsewhere in the city and well within the original budget. And there are more questions too. Why was a Spokane contractor hired to build the Coeur d'Alene library? Our tax dollars flowing across the border into Washington? And what about the large art centerpiece -- it's not from a local artist, it's from the East coast and, though it is beautiful, it doesn't look like North Idaho.

So, yes, our new Coeur d'Alene jewels are lovely. But, Mayor and Council, we want more than bling. We want to understand how and why our tax dollars are being used. We are desperate for clarity in our governmental system and want the light to shine all the way through the decision-making. And we need to see you being responsible, accountable stewards of our money.