Cape library project to bypass voters

CAPE ELIZABETH — A 4-3 split on the Cape Elizabeth Town Council means the council, and not voters, will decide whether to borrow up to $6.5 million to rebuild the Thomas Memorial Library.

Not surprisingly, that ruling has proven unpopular with some in town, even though the council has promised to seek public input between now and October, when it will decide what, if anything, to bond. In fact, emails sent to councilors in the week since they took unilateral control of the issue have been 100 percent against the decision.

“An investment of this size in these times should not be made without direct voter input,” wrote Hunts Point Road resident Dan Fishbein, in a typical response.

However, those who ranked a council decision over a public vote – including councilors Katherine Ray, David Sherman, Jessica Sullivan and James Walsh – point out that state law only requires a referendum for school borrowing. Municipal projects can gain life under the auspices of the Town Council alone, and that method has worked in Cape Elizabeth before. In a March 12 workshop session on the issue, Sherman pointed to the fire station, the police station and the public works garage as recent projects not put to a public vote.

And although some agree with Rock Crest Drive resident Patricia Brigham, who said “negative reactions and ill will resulted” from the council failing to get a mother-may-I on the police station, Sherman and the others say Cape’s town charter puts the borrowing ball in the council’s court.

“It’s our job,” Sullivan said on Monday, suggesting the question has moral implications on the councilors’ side of the line, as well.

“I think we are elected to make responsible decisions,” she said. “Where do you draw the line? If you send every tough decision to voters, it’s kind of a copout, I think.”

Sullivan was a library trustee in 2007 when Himmel & Wilson Library Consultants, of Milton, Wisc., prepared a needs assessment of the library, which is actually a hodge-podge compilation of three old school houses, dating from the 1850s to 1910, stuck together in 1986 with two “connector” buildings.

Combined, the five buildings have 15,000 square feet of space, but only 13,500 is what library director Jay Sherma terms “usable,” due to the maze-like structure of the facility.

“Even at that, for our needs, the building is about 6,000 square feet too small,” he has said.

Beyond the apparent size issue, Himmel & Wilson drew up a list of 102 “deficiencies” in the building, including floors that can’t handle the weight of books, aisles that do not meet disability standards, issues with moisture and humidity, heating and cooling, poor ventilation, antiquated plumbing and no facilities to run computer wiring.

"If this was a school building, it'd be shut down," RuthAnne Haley, trustee chairwoman, said at one recent meeting.

The report claimed the library’s component pieces lacked historical significance. Consequently, the original 23,000-square-foot design offered last summer by Pennsylvania-based Casaccio Architects was a total rebuild. But enthusiasm for that concept was thin, so trustees ordered from Casaccio a do-over that retained the old Pond Cove School, which fronts the library on Scott Dyer Road. The re-draw also added a second-floor with dormers, giving the building a more Colonial-era feel.

Originally, a June referendum was envisioned, but in January, the Portland consulting firm Demont Associates, hired last September to assess fundraising potential, advised trustees to hold off until November. The problem, Bob Demont said, is that while the ability easily exists in Cape to raise upward of $2 million toward the library in private donations, the will is weak. Demont pointed out that while 81 percent of those polled said they’d give something, a mere 26 percent deemed the library a “priority” for their philanthropic efforts.

Still, while power-donors appear disinterested in the library, Sullivan said the decision to bypass voters was not made for fear the rank-and-file would prove similarly tepid toward the project.

“It is a lot of money. However, I am not aware of any outright concern that it would get turned down,” she said.

Instead, Sullivan said, the four councilors who favor unilateral action came to that conclusion independently, at a March 5 workshop.

“Four of us just kind of came up with that thought independently,” recalled Sullivan. “We four just happened to say, ‘I don’t know what we’re talking about a referendum for, we should just go ahead and vote. That’s our job.’”

But Council Chairwoman Sara Lennon said the reason for a referendum should be self-evident.

“To me, while it’s correct we are not legally bound to put it to a vote, I like the idea of having the people weigh in on a project as big as this,” she said on Monday, citing support for the position from councilors Frank Governali and Caitlin Jordan.

“We should do that if we are going to spend between $6 million and $8 million of people’s money,” said Lennon. “I want to know what everyone thinks of that.

“I’m for the library,” she continued, “but I look at not holding a referendum as a lost opportunity to get the whole town having a conversation about this.”

If the matter is reduced from a public vote to a council debate, only those with strong, personal interests will turn out, Lennon predicts. Worse, she says, those who do attend may be so poisoned by the process they’ll care more about feeling shut out than for the project itself.

While Lennon and Sullivan fall on different sides of the question, both say the library debate represents the chance to have, as Lennon puts it, “a great conversation as to who are we as a town.” That’s because both agree that the town needs more than a repository of books. The new library is expected to be a center for technology, culture and community in Cape Elizabeth.

That’s partly why, while it will not seek public input on whether to bond the project, the council does want people to speak up about what they want any new library to look like, and what services it should offer.

At its next meting, set for April 9, the council will vote on a “timeline” it intends to follow between then and Oct. 10, when they are expected to appoint a building committee and issue a $6.5 million bond, in hope of raising up to $2 million toward the new library through private donations.

That timeline will include six months of “extensive public engagement” in which library trustees will try to get residents to articulate “a vision for a community-wide, multi-use space where citizens gather to enjoy technology, reading, conversation and cultural events.”

“What we are planning is going to have a significant amount of flexibility,” Sullivan said. “I think the needs of the library are quite apparent. It’s a very vital facility that provides a very important service to all of our citizens. What the trustees will be handling the lion’s share of is that public outreach between now and October that, although this project has been talked about since 2007, forms a very valid concern, or thought process, about what our library’s going to be in the future.

“I suspect that those who are pushing a referendum vote are not in favor of rebuilding the library, and possibly do not realize that our library is one of the most heavily used in the entire state, given our population,” said Sullivan. “I would ask those individuals, ‘What is your alternative? Do you envision Cape Elizabeth citizens, from toddlers to our elderly, without a library?’"

Decision could be overruled

While Cape Elizabeth Town Manager Michael McGovern says town councilors are empowered to borrow money without voter approval, their actions can be overruled.

State law requires a public referendum on any school construction, but it is mum on municipal capital projects. The Cape Elizabeth charter, McGovern says, gives the councilors “financial and other powers now or hereafter given by statute to inhabitants of towns acting in town meeting,” including powers “relating to borrowing of any kind.”

So, he says, the council can issue a $6.5 million bond, as proposed, to build a new library, without holding a public referendum.

However, the charter also says voters can overrule the council and cancel any capital expenditure if it “exceeds 0.05 percent of the last state valuation.” Given a state valuation of $1.8 billion, any single project of $900,000 or more can be de-funded by voters.

To do so, voters must submit a petition within 20 days of the council vote to authorized and fund the project. That petition must be signed by 10 percent of the registered voters in town, or roughly 750 people. If the requisite number of valid signatures is submitted, the council must call a public hearing within 30 days of when the petition is submitted. A referendum vote is then scheduled within 14 days of the public hearing, giving voters a chance, in the case of the library, to disallow the council vote to borrow funds.