City to use local-option funds to help buy new library site

The City Council agreed with its Budget Committee last night and voted 9-0 to use $4 million in revenue from the city's local-option sales tax to help purchase the site for the new library.

Mayor Ron Corbett has made the case that the council will have sufficient revenue from the sales tax to use some of it to help with land purchases for some of the city's flood recovery projects like the library and the Central Fire Station.

The $4 million in sales-tax revenue for the library is the additional cost the library faced for land acquisition after the council picked the most expensive of three sites, the TrueNorth Companies site in the 400 block of Fourth Avenue SE, for the library. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is only willing to provide disaster funds for land purchase equal to the cost of the least-expensive of three options.

Interestingly, the least-expensive option for the library was the 700 block of First Avenue SE, known as the Emerald Knights site, where the council last night decided to build the city's new Central Fire Station.

Another sliver of land still needs to be purchased for the library, and Corbett has said he wants to use an estimated $200,000 in sales-tax revenue to make the purchase.