Can bigger, better Ladd branch library help on tax levy vote?

CEDAR RAPIDS - No one is suggesting that as the west side of the city's vote goes so goes the Nov. 3 ballot measure on a tax levy of 27 cents per $1,000 of taxable property value to support the operation of the city's library.

Even so, a quick review of precinct-by-precinct voting behavior in the city - with its supposed and long talked about east-side, west-side geographic divide - seems to suggest that more heavy-lifting can be required to convince those who reside in westside voting precincts to sign on to matters involving local tax money.

A quick look at four votes on the local-option sales tax from 2003 to 2012 shows in each election that more westside voting precincts voted against the measure than east-side ones. The issues were flood recovery, flood control, fixing streets and the once-proposed 2003 RiverRun redevelopment project. There are fewer west-side precincts, too.

Even in November 2013, four of five of the city's 44 voting precincts where the majority of voters voted 'No” were on the city's west side as voters approved a local-option tax for streets - which is money now being used for the city's 10-year Paving for Progress program. In that vote, more than 60 percent of the voters in 21 of the 44 voting precincts voted for the tax, and 16 of the 21 of the most supportive precincts were east-side precincts.

Dara Schmidt, the city's library director, said every request of voters for tax support is a challenge, and she said her job is to talk about the library's value for the tax dollar.

Even so, there she was earlier this month, with news reporters and photographers in tow, going door to door in the Harrison Elementary School neighborhood in northwest Cedar Rapids to sign up new library patrons and to talk shop about the library.

And part of the talk is this: Remember, there's the two-year-old, $46-million showcase of a downtown library built without any debt. But there is also the newly outfitted west-side branch library that is seven times as large as the pre-flood 'shoe box” of a branch library, the one that had operated in a storefront above the old Chick-fil-A in the former Westdale Mall.

A map of the metro area, Schmidt said, had shown a library in Marion, one in Hiawatha, the city's central downtown library and 'a big empty pocket” on the city's west side. The bigger, better west-side branch library, called the Ladd Library, has filled the hole, she said.

'This branch library is so much bigger, there is so much more usage at it than in the past,” the library director said. 'It shows the west side is as vibrant and alive as the east side.”

Numbers provided by the library support the point: In 2007, the west-side branch had 101,883 visits and circulated 170,713 items; in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2015, visits climbed to 178,880 and circulation to 337,020 items. The branch library has 20 computers, a community room and parking out front.

One morning last week, Joe Booth, 36, a former Cedar Falls police officer, was at the west side branch library with four-year-old daughter Ashlyn. He brings her to the library at least once a week where she can use the library's interactive touch-screen computer that is loaded with computer programs for developing children that he doesn't have at home, he said.

'It's clean, it's comfortable and it's handy on this side of town,” said the west-side resident. 'They have an extremely good selection of books for kids. On some days, I drop my son at kindergarten and come right here for the library's story time for my daughter.”

On this morning, too, Kim Ott, clinic operations manager for the Hawkeye Area Community Action Program, was running a Women, Infants and Children food and nutrition program for Hispanic families in the branch library's community room.

Before the library, she said she ran the clinic in a hallway at a Hy-Vee Food Store.

'There has been a large lack of services on this side of town,” Ott said. 'This meets that need.”

She said the library is the perfect spot for the clinic session because it starts the work on acquainting infants and children with the library and with books.

'Here they can touch and feel the books,” Ott said. 'That's huge for us.”

Brad Gardner, who lives with his family on Cedar Rapids' west side and works as a part-time customer service associate at the library, said he's come to learn that there is 'so much more ‘public' than ‘library' in ‘public library.'”

On any given day, he said a lengthy printout details an assortment of activities at the library.

'I guess I was just traditional in thinking that libraries were houses of books,” Gardner said. 'So that's been pretty amazing to see.”

He said the branch library is no different that the new downtown library in that occasionally he said a patron will suggest that it's too nice. He said few realize that longtime library patron Marilyn Ladd set aside $750,000 for the library in her will, money which was used to renovate the larger branch library. Hence, the name of the branch, Ladd Library.

But for her, the west-side branch would be something less, Gardner said.

'I think this places satisfies the needs of this side of town. People don't have to drive downtown,” he said.

Tina Pipkin, another part-time library employee and west-side resident, said the Ladd Library is a 'jewel” that not enough people know about.

'The downtown library is huge and beautiful,” Pipkin said. 'But I kind of look at this as a neighborhood library. It's a very comfortable, laid-back place. And that's a huge draw for people.”

It's not all love.

Jim Mayer, a retired former editor at The Gazette, now lives close to the west-side library with his wife and he called it 'our library.” He's never been in the new downtown library, he said. But he said the west-side branch could use more staff.

In years past, he said he used to chuckle when he lived in Anamosa and heard east-side Cedar Rapidians refuse to go to a movie on the west side. Instead, they waited for it to come to the east side. Anamosa residents didn't care which side the movie was on, he said.

Harold Denton, who retired from his post as Linn County attorney in 2010, was playing chess on a computer at the Ladd Library last week, killing time before an appointment to get a haircut.

Denton, a Tennessee native who lives on Cedar Rapids' east side, said he came to know about the supposed geographic divide in the city through a group of friends who all went to Jefferson High School on the city's west side. One of them declared he didn't think he could ever live on the city's east side, Denton said.

He guessed the long-standing perception, however accurate or inaccurate, is that the west side is the more working-class side of the city.

As for this east-sider, Denton, a regular library user, said he wasn't sure how he'll vote on the upcoming tax levy question.

'I use the library a lot, so I probably will vote for it,” he said. 'I think a city should have a good library. And most good-sized cities have branches. I think for a lot of people, with this west-side, east-side thing, it's important to have stuff on the west side, too.”