When members of Star Hill Church need a place to congregate, or students from Capitol Middle School are searching for a place to meet after school, they cross Greenwell Springs Road to head to the Eden Park Branch Library.
“The library in so many ways has become Baton Rouge’s living room,” the Rev. Raymond Jetson of Star Hill Church said at an event this morning urging voters to approve a dedicated property tax on this fall’s ballot for the East Baton Rouge Parish Library System. “It’s the place where we go and we read, it’s the place where we go and meet with others, it’s the place where we can go and have a quiet space to enrich ourselves.”
Jetson joined library system officials, former library employees and citizens to kick off a public awareness blitz aimed at informing voters how the money raised by the 10-year, 11.1-mill property tax up for renewal on Oct. 24 will be spent. The millage, which was first passed 1995 and renewed in 2005, is expected to generate about $44 million in the first year.
The public awareness campaign will focus on reaching people through social media, yard signs and word of mouth, said Kizzy Payton, president of the East Baton Rouge Parish Library Board of Control. A political action committee, the EBR Library PAC, has been formed to help spread the word. So far, the PAC has ordered 500 yard signs, 8,000 fliers, 8,000 bookmarks and 25,000 stickers.
“I cannot imagine a viable community that wouldn’t have a great library system like we have,” said Bob Breaux, chapter chair for SCORE, a national small business development nonprofit. “We need to have fire, we need to have police, we need to have roads, but we need to have libraries.”
The library system plans to spend 5% of the money raised by the tax renewal for the renovation of several aging branches identified as target areas in the Branch Assessment Project conducted earlier this year. Branches targeted for renovations include Jones Creek Road, Greenwell Springs Road, Baker, Zachary and Central. The renovation projects would be spread over the next decade, with cost estimates for each project ranging from roughly $3.6 million to $4.4 million.
The proposed changes at those branches include features that have proved popular in the new Main Library and Fairwood branches, such as technology upgrades, added meeting spaces, reconfigured shelving, varied seating arrangements and dedicated teen areas.
The other 95% of the money raised by the millage would fund daily operational costs and expenses.
“There is no substitute for it. There is no alternative source of funding,” Library Director Spencer Watts said at this morning’s event, echoing statements he recently made to the Press Club of Baton Rouge.
If the millage fails, the library system says it has enough money to fund operations for six months before having to shutter all the branches. A special election would need to be called in early 2016 to try to get the millage passed a second time.
According to figures provided by the library system, the owner of a home valued at $100,000 would pay $27.75 annually in taxes dedicated to the library if the renewal is approved by voters. For a home valued at $200,000, the owner would pay $138.75 each year. The library system has more details on the tax renewal.
—Ryan Broussard
