2 finalists announced for Marion Library director

MARION — The Marion Public Library is close to selecting a new director as construction progresses on a new downtown library building.

The library on Friday announced the two finalists for the director’s job are:

The library will hold an online Zoom forum at 5 p.m. Monday where community members can ask questions of the candidate. Links to the forum will be released Monday on the library’s social media pages.

Last November, former Library Director Hollie Trenary was fired from the position without public explanation. The library board voted 6-3 during a special meeting to terminate Trenary’s $102,000-a-year contract “for no just cause.”

The library has seen three directors in the past five years as it has struggled with changing plans to expand and meet the demand of a growing community.

In 2016, former director Doug Raber retired after five years

In 2017, Elsworth Carman was hired as director but took a job as the city’s director of administrative services before leaving and becoming director of the Iowa City Public Library in 2018.

Trenary, who began that same year, previously was operations manager for the Cedar Rapids Public Library and oversaw the design for the 50,000-square-foot library to be built in the 1100 block of Sixth Avenue.

The $18 million library is expected to open in March 2022.

The facility is being paid for through a $3.3 million capital campaign, $5 million in local-option sales tax funding, $3 million in property damage insurance and the sale of the current library, $6 million in bonding and $1 million in tax increment financing.

The old library, at 11th Street and Sixth Avenue, closed for good after the Aug. 10 derecho damaged the building’s room and 20 percent of the library’s collection.

A small Uptown Library branch is open at 1064 Seventh Avenue for browsing and book pickup, with a temporary technology station set up at the Marion Columbus Club, 5650 Kacena Ave.

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