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Published Thursday, July 24, 2008 in Local

County library board approves operating agreement with Senoia

By Sarah Fay Campbell

The Times-Herald

The Coweta County Library Board of Trustees approved a branch operating agreement with the city of Senoia on Tuesday, pending review by the board's attorney.

The board voted to approve the agreement at the end of a three-hour meeting.

The Senoia City Council was expected to approve the agreement Wednesday night.

The council had approved an agreement in May, and this meeting was the first opportunity for the library board, which only meets quarterly, to discuss the agreement.

It wasn't on the agenda, however. Richard Ferry, Senoia's city administrator and the city's representative to the board, asked to have the agreement added to the agenda.

"I'm not sure I understand what you're saying," said board Chairwoman Liz Camp.

Ferry said that the agreement presented to the board was different than what the council had earlier approved. The city had received a copy of a proposed "member library" services agreement. But it soon became obvious that being a member library "really wasn't the direction we were looking for," Ferry said. So the new agreement is for a branch library. "I would like to add that to the agenda," he said.

"What are we adding? I repeat," said Camp. The agreement was then placed at the end of the agenda.

A major difference between a member and branch library is that a member library has its own board. A branch library's board is advisory only.

Ferry said that, after the council approved the earlier agreement, city officials met with Library System Director Barbara Osborne-Harris and trustee Susan Whatley. "We waited for a response and finally we got it this morning," Ferry said. "There was no way the city could meet the requirements of the member library agreement."

The advisory board "turned out to just be the friends of the library," Ferry said. "We have a policy about friends, so we nixed that part and adopted the same wording that the Grantville agreement has."

The city's earlier agreement had also contained a provision regarding employees. Under that agreement, any employees who were city library employees at the time of the agreement couldn't be terminated or demoted without council approval.

After discussion with Mayor Robert Belisle and Councilman Larry Owens, "we came to the conclusion that we probably won't want to move in that direction either," Ferry said.

The city will provide a one-acre site, $20,000 per year, and all the library impact fees the city has collected.

Ferry said he would like to see the county adopt impact fees for libraries, and the city drop its fees.

When Coweta County implemented impact fees several years ago, library fees were considered. But because Senoia collected those fees, there were concerns about duplication of service and unfairness, so the county's library fees were nixed.

Board Attorney Pat McKee said that he had not had time to thoroughly review the agreement. He recommended that the board vote to approve the agreement in concept, subject to his review. "Assuming it passes muster, which I assume it will, then it will be adopted," McKee said.

There was also some discussion of architectural design services for the library.

The Senoia City Council had planned to issue a request for proposals for an architect to design the building once the agreement was approved.

However, said Osborne-Harris, the county still has a contract with the architect who did the plans for the original library site. Those plans are complete, but the state library facilities director didn't like the city's site, located in the Seavy Street Park. Since then, Senoia had purchased property adjacent to Merrimac Lakes for the new library. The original plans were for a library that resembled a train depot. Since the new site is nowhere near the railroad, a completely new design is needed.

Professional services paid for out of local funds don't have to go through the bid process, Obsorne-Harris said. "It's just a matter of getting our ducks in a row."

Osborne-Harris said that she thought that Ferry could bring to the board the city's desire to hire an architect, "but it is ultimately up to this board to make those decisions. The law gives them that."

"It is the desire of the city to put out an RFP for architectural services," Ferry said.

"I don't think that is on the agenda," Osborne-Harris said.

"In other words ... we're going to have to have a called meeting," Ferry said.

The board will need to have a called meeting to approve the budget request because personnel numbers aren't in yet. So both that and Senoia's library design could be discussed in the called meeting.

Ferry said he would meet with Coweta County Administrator Theron Gay and get a recommendation from the mayor and council to bring to the library board.

The Senoia library will be funded by the city impact fees, $500,000 from the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax and a $1.225 million state grant.

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