St Pierre moves to buy new library building

The Village of St Pierre presented its plan to buy a new building for its Jolys Regional Library to a packed room of library patrons and taxpayers.

The location of the building was a bit confusing to those gathered in council chambers. The address on title is 479 Jolys Avenue East, though its number is out of order on that street and most know the St Pierre-Jolys Professional Centre as being at 479 Turenne Street.

The proposal is to borrow up to $250,000 over 10 years with an interest rate of seven percent or lower to buy and renovate the building.

Every property owner would be charged the same flat tax to pay off the loan. Residents would have the option of paying a lump sum of $479.90 or finance the cost at $70 per year.

CAO Tina Bubenzer gave a detailed presentation Oct. 16 on the proposal that included a timeline and why council is considering the move from the library’s current location attached to Red River Valley School Division’s (RRVSD) Ecole Heritage Immersion school, where it has been since the 1960s.

First, Bubenzer gave library user numbers. The latest data from this year showed 474 from St Pierre, 817 from the RM of De Salaberry, 569 students and staff from the attached school, and 15 from outside the areas.

The context of De Salaberry’s partnership in the library was highlighted, as the RM lowered its funding to 50 percent of operating costs after the confirmation by the school division this year that the expanded St Malo School would be using its former public library space as daycare space instead.

That left the St Pierre school location as the only library space left. Then the school division also announced in June that the library would be only open to students and staff during school hours, reducing publicly available hours. The school division has also made it clear that the priority for the space is for the school, and that if the student population keeps growing and it’s needed for learning space in the future, the library would be closed to the public.

The capital cost of any new building in St Pierre would be completely funded by the village. Any new building capital costs to buy or renovate in the RM would be funded completely by the RM. It is the day-to-day operating costs that are shared by the two municipalities.

The proposed new location at the Professional Centre is slightly smaller than recommended by provincial standards based on population, but close enough for council to consider it as a temporary solution.

In response to questions from the gallery, Deputy Mayor Michel Forest said the long-term plan is to build a new library as part of the recreation and wellness campus.

That would be a new addition to the plans drawn up and on the village’s website. The campus now includes a gymnasium, indoor turf, arena, office space and new daycare, but no library. The village is applying for grants from other levels of government to help build the facilities, but there is no timeline on when those might be approved.

“When I say three to five years, we’re sincerely hoping it’s going to be a lot less than that. We have other plans for that building after. We’ve been in discussions with other folks that if the library’s not in there, they probably would like to take it over,” explained Forest to the crowd.

There were several in the crowd concerned about the cost, space for programming, and temporary nature of the deal. But library supporters took most of the public comment time up with their questions and support of finding a solution for a library space.

One resident who introduced herself as Val compared the cost of every property owner’s share of the library tax to the cost of hockey and baseball.

“Yeah it’s money out of your pocket, but $470 plus interest investment… I don’t feel that this is too outrageous an investment to make in regards to the children of our community.

“And that is what the community is based on. We’ve got how many new families moving in with apartment buildings, town houses what have you. That’s great, we need something to keep them here,” she said, adding residents should organize a foundation and more fundraising.

“We need to think about the children.”

“It’s the fact that we’re already being taxed to death here,” interjected another resident.

Council still needs to give final reading to the borrowing bylaw and village-wide local improvement tax.