The decision to rebuild the downtown library has tensions high on the East Baton Rouge Library Board of Control, which played out in a terse e-mail exchange between President Kizzy Payton and board member Stanford Bardwell the day before the board’s July 15 meeting. In the e-mail from Bardwell to Payton, and copied to executive director David Farrar and the other board members, Bardwell requests information that supports the demand for the spatial needs of the downtown library. He also says he wanted an “alternate design option” to be presented by an architect other than Trey Trahan, who volunteered time to develop another concept “at a great deal less money” than the $19 million that has already been set aside for the project. “Surely you must agree that we have an obligation to the tax payers who fund our construction to at least receive information that can accomplish all cosmetic and functional upgrades at a cost of less than $10M.” He adds, “As a board, we do not have any obligation to Trahan (Architects) to help him win some award for a fancy building that is overbuilt. Nor do we have any obligation to satisfy Davis Rhorer’s (executive director of the Downtown Development District) ego or wish list or Adam Knapps (sic; BRAC executive director), because it is their job to ask for the moon in hopes of getting something better than is there now.”
Payton’s e-mailed response points out that a staff report on the spatial needs for the downtown branch library would be presented at the August meeting. The president reminds Bardwell that the board already publicly discussed and approved the decision to appropriate the $19 million toward the downtown library, and she criticizes him for engaging an alternative architect on behalf of the board without board approval. She asks, “Have you made a promise of payment? Is he doing all this work for free? He is willing to do this $10 million dollar rendering for free? You are not authorized to hire architects.” In the same e-mail she also denounces Bardwell’s comments regarding the motives of Rhorer and Knapp. “We have and will continue to do right by the taxpayers,” she says. “This has been on the table for two years. Now, when the board starts voting differently than you had hoped for ($19 million, etc.) you have to resort to personal attacks.”
Multiple calls to Payton, Bardwell and Farrar were not answered by press time.
