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Published Friday, April 24, 2009 in Local

Bid documents close for new Grantville Library

By Sarah Fay Campbell

The Times-Herald

Bid documents for the Grantville Library project are ready to go out, as soon as the short list of contractors has been approved by the state, Coweta County Commission, and the Coweta Library Board.

Approval of the short list was on the agenda for this week's meetings of the Coweta County Library Board and the county Board of Commissioners, but the items had to be pulled because there is no word from the state yet.

The Georgia Public Library Service has to approve the short list, and the criteria in the request for qualifications, before it can be approved by the county and the library board, said Barbara Osborne-Harris, Coweta Library System director.

As soon as she gets approval from the state, Osborne-Harris said plans are to have a called meeting of the library board to approve the list, and to have the county commissioners approve it at their next meeting.

Once that is done, the bid documents can be sent out to all of the approved contractors.

Other than that, "it is coming together quickly now," said Robert Ward, head of the library board's capital projects committee.

If the state approval comes fairly quickly, site work could begin in about 30 days, Ward said, and actual construction could be just two to three months away.

Weyman Jenkins, second district board member and a Grantville resident, said he had spoken with Osborne-Harris about possibly honoring Grantville native Thomas Zellars with some sort of display in the new library.

Zellars was killed in 1924 in an explosion on the ship U.S.S. Mississippi. Before he was killed, though, he was able to open a flood valve, thereby saving the ship and much of its crew. A Navy ship named in his honor, the destroyer U.S.S. Zellars, was launched in 1944 and served in World War II and Korea.

Jenkins said he had been contacted by the president of the Zellars organization, who has a large collection of memorabilia and information.

"I would think that would be something that we should try to find a place for in the new library," Jenkins said, "since it is so community-oriented, and I want to get the feeling of the board as to how y'all feel" before he pursues it further.

The feeling was not positive.

County library board Chairwoman Lillie Smith worried that honoring Zellars in the new library would open up a Pandora's box.

Maybe there could be a rotating schedule or calendar for a public display of memorabilia, said Sharon Burke. There could be a designated space in each library for such items, "so that everybody can participate."

If Grantville is willing to finance the display, "then we should be receptive to that," Jenkins said. "There are not very many small communities in this area who have had somebody that a ship was named after," he said.

"So do we need to open it up to everybody in Coweta?" asked Burke. "I think of all the people who have done sacrificial things in their life..."

"What are you going to do when you have 20 people in Grantville that want to honor a loved one that has done something outstanding?" Smith asked. At what point can you say, no more?

"Well, people who have that particular argument and that particular type of shortsightedness, I might say I don't have a problem in telling them no, that is not what we intended to do," Jenkins said.

"Let's table this for right now and everybody think and we can discuss it later," said Smith.

In other meeting business:

* The board went through a strategic visioning session as the first step in coming up with a mission statement and strategic plan.

* Obsorne-Harris announced that there are several events in the works to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the opening of the Central Library in east Coweta, on May 14. There will be an evening reception and a luncheon with the architects.

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