Chapel Hill has accepted an agreement to get more money from Orange County for its library.

The council approved the agreement 6-3 with Easthom, Czajkowski and Bell dissenting.

In December, the Orange County commissioners approved the agreement, in which the county increases its contribution to the Chapel Hill library by 3 percent each year, until the allocation reaches 30 percent of the county's total library operations budget by June 20, 2015.

The county will give $342,986, up from $250,000, to Chapel Hill for its library for the next fiscal year, which is 21 percent of the county's library operating budget, according to the agreement.

From correspondent Tammy Grubb

The Carrboro Board of Aldermen voted 6-1 Tuesday night to rezone a 2.69-acre parcel at 210 Hillsborough Road for the county’s new southwest branch library.

Alderman Jacqueline Gist said she could not support the rezoning, because she thinks the site is in a residential and not a transitional commercial district. No one is opposed to a library, she said, but the process feels rushed, with little transparency or cooperation between the county and town.

“The citizens of Carrboro for generations have been paying the same taxes as everybody in Orange County,” Gist said. “It is very disconcerting that all of a sudden, after 24 years, it’s hurry up and pass this, and it’s all this or nothing.”

Mayor Mark Chilton disagreed, saying that while he’s not convinced the site is the best, the move would be “a show of good faith from town government” that Carrboro and the county could work together to resolve the concerns and talk about other viable sites.

“There’s plenty of reason for suspicion, but I hope this project is going to be an opportunity to change what our relationship with the county has been in the past,” Chilton said.

From correspondent Tammy Grubb:

The Board of Aldermen could vote tonight on whether to rezone a 2.69-acre parcel on Hillsborough Road for the county’s new southwest branch library.

Although the vote originally was scheduled for April 19, it was moved up a week to accommodate the county’s need to have a decision before its contract to buy the property expires. If the county misses the deadline, it has to pay $10,000 to retain its interest in the 210 Hillsborough Road site for another 90 days.

County officials notified the aldermen about the misunderstanding a few days after a March 22 public hearing on the 20,000-square-foot, one-story project. Previously, the county told Carrboro officials they needed a decision before April 21. The aldermen voted last Tuesday night to confirm the date change.

The Board of Aldermen meet at 7:30 p.m. in the Carrboro Town Hall boardroom.
 

Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton is losing patience with the discussion over how Chapel Hill is going to pay for its library.

The library is the most heavily used, per capita, in the state. But an expansion is on hold until Chapel Hill figures out how to pay additional operating costs that could raise taxpayers annual town tax bills $30 a year.

The problem? Forty percent of items circulated go outside Chapel Hill, but Orange County government contributes only 11 percent of operating costs. Chapel Hill has tried to get the county to pony up and even floated the idea of asking Carrboro for money.

Now Chapel Hill Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt, stuck on county negotiations, wants a meeting with Carrboro.    

“I suppose we have to, although I do not look forward to it,” Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton replied in an e-mail.

Libraries are a county function and that’s where Chapel Hill needs to solve its problem, the mayor said.   

“I am no way – no how – never going to vote to put Carrboro into the same dysfunctional relationsip with either the County or Chapel Hill that the two of them already have with each other,” he wrote.

In an interview, Chilton said Carrboro is a small town and can't afford to pay for using Chapel Hill's library.  In his e-mail he says Chapel Hill and Orange County should open a branch downtown instead of expand, putting library services in walking distance of much of the population, including low-incom people of color who might have difficult getting to libraries farther out.   

Candidates split this week on how to pay for the Chapel Hill Public Library. The library costs $2.5 million a year to operate, rising to $4 million when the expansion is built. Yet, 40 percent of users live outside town, and Orange County's contribution remains just $250,00 a year.

Mark Kleinschmidt said he will draw relationships built over eight years on the Town Council to get more money from the county. He called charging out-of-county users "an unworkable idea. ... I'm not going to support charging a Carrboro student coming to the Chapel Hill library to check out books." 

Matt Czajkowski said Mayor Kevin Foy has relationships too and they have not helped the library's bottom line. [Foy has suggested charging out of town users for a library card.] "What's not discussed is the town of Carrboro," Czajkowski said. "It is flat out unfair for residents of Chapel Hill to be effectively paying for them to use our library." 

Augustus Cho said he would support a minimal fee for people living outside Chapel Hill.

Kevin Wolff did not comment on fees for out-of-town users. He said the town needs to be as proud of its library as its fare-free bus service and that the council needs to prioritize its spending. "It's our public library; we need to pay for it," he said.

That funny-looking building you're looking at is a rendering of the new library being planned for N.C. State's Centennial Campus.

A Norwegian firm is designing the super-futuristic building, which will trade the traditional library stacks for a room equipped with robots that will find the book you want and grab it off the shelf.

Yes, really.

Jay Price reports.

From staff writer Jesse James DeConto:

Chapel Hill Town Manager Roger Stancil has reopened talk of a branch library downtown.

Last
fall, amid the volatile economy, the Town Council decided to put on
hold a $16-million expansion project at the Chapel Hill Public Library
off Estes Drive.

Some community leaders, most notably Chamber of
Commerce President Aaron Nelson, had lobbied the council in the spring
of 2007 to abandon the expansion and use the money to establish a new
branch downtown.

Are you on the Duke campus and just gotta update your Facebook status?

Click here to find the closest unoccupied public computer. 

The Chapel Hill Town Council has put off a decision on whether to move ahead with the expansion of the Chapel Hill Public Library until December. But a recent e-mail exchange between Mayor Kevin Foy and a local citizen suggests a theme likely to come back when the council resumes it discussion.

In an Oct. 16 e-mail, Patsy Saylor criticizes the mayor for again bringing up the fact that 40 percent of those using the library are from outside Chapel Hill. The citizens of Chapel Hill voted for the expansion in 2003, Saylor notes. "The Friends [of the Library] have no ability to change the policy of what patrons are charged or not charged," she says.

Foy is concerned about the project's impact on the town's tax rate during the economic downtown. In his e-mail response, he says he's not going to back down, even though county officials have said they're not going to increase their contribution to the town's library.

"Chapel Hill taxpayers are being used by their fellow Orange County residents, mostly because we have been willing to sit still for it," Foy says. "I don't think we should, and I don't think you or other members of the Friends should continue to sit still for it. ... [W]e can't afford it."

Duke University Libraries has launched a new digital collection of about 5,000 photographs, taken mostly in China between 1917 and 1932. The photos were taken by Sidney Gamble, grandson of Proctor and Gamble co-founder James Gamble.

Sidney Gamble was a sociologist and photographer who traveled extensively in China.

Check out the collection here