In an effort to increase its odds of winning a grant for the expansion of the Lebanon Public Library, the City Council committed funds toward a matching amount during a special meeting on Wednesday, June 24.
City Manager Ron Whitlatch explained the city planned to apply for a Community Development Block Grant that would pay for an expansion in the library’s children’s area, but staff learned the grant will likely not provide as much funding as originally expected.
The city presented four options for the council to consider concerning the matter, which were: use the $514,000 proceeds from the sale of the Santiam Travel Station as a match offer; use some of the Travel Station funds and some from the Library Trust to make a $500,000 match; use $250,000 from the Library Trust as a match; or apply for the grant without a match offer.
“I know in the scoring criteria in the grant, the more match money you have, the better scoring points you get,” Whitlatch said. “There’s still no guarantee that we’re even gonna be successful in the grant or even if we’re going to get enough grant to match what we have in order to build the project.”
Councilor Dave Workman preferred to split a match offer of $500,000 (or less) between library funds and the Travel Station sale, stating he believes it’s better if the city save some of the sale proceeds in case something unexpected comes up.
Councilor Michelle Steinhebel said she could support that option, although she’d most prefer to use the full Travel Station proceeds because she’s “a fan of using one-time funds for one-time expenditures” and the sale of the Travel Station resulted in the City Council taking up library space.
Steinhebel reminded Workman the city already has a 17.1% contingency fund budgeted for those things that unexpectedly come up.
“But a contingency is a contingency,” Workman replied. “It’s for something unforeseen, and we don’t know what’s unforeseen. So taking from the contingency and not adding to it a little bit seems a little shortsighted. There’s worse things that could happen than to have something happen to the library. There’s worse things in our city, we are on the edge on a lot of things, and that’s just how I feel about stuff.”
Library Director Kendra Antila said the CDBG’s maximum possible award available would be $1.5 million, but Whitlatch added the city really doesn’t know how the decision-makers would decide to split their overall pot between other applicants.
If the city is ultimately underfunded for the library expansion project, staff would likely recommend the council not accept the grant.
“It has to come back to (the council) to approve the grant, and at that time, if we’ve got enough money compiled between match and the grant to move the project forward, then we would recommend moving forward,” Whitlach said.
Mayor Ken Jackola told the council he believes the value of the money from the sale is best preserved by investing all of it into the tangible asset of the library.
Councilor David McClain noted the public’s perception, stating the public’s likely response would be along the lines of, “well they got some money and now they just can’t wait to spend it.”
“When we passed that $!8 water fee, there was talk that when the city gets caught up and things stable out, we will drop that fee,” McClain said. “Well, there hasn’t been one mention of that now that the city’s doing better and we have extra money.”
Antila clarified that if the city matched $500,000 from the sale of the travel station, she would expect to use up to $200,000 from the Library Trust to cover cost overruns and/or replace the patio space.
Ultimately, the council unanimously approved a motion made by Councilor Jeremy Salvage to commit $300,000 from the sale proceeds toward the match for the grant.
In other business, the council:
- Approved a transfer of appropriations, which Finance Director Brandon Neish referred to as an “end-of-year cleanup,” which came out of contingency funds.
- Authorized supplemental budgets for a grant received for a wetlands delineation study and additional state transit funding for LINX.
- Operating as the Urban Renewal Agency, authorized transfer of appropriations for the North Gateway URD for staff payroll and consulting services.
- Discussed and approved replacing the city’s multiple software platforms with a centralized Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system from OpenGov. Councilor Workman noted it’s “a line item that’s pretty expensive” to the budget, so he would hope to see some accounting of how it ultimately saved money and time.
- Workman mentioned talk around town about “a kid terrorizing people at Columbus Park” on an e-bike, and asked about addressing laws concerning motorized bikes and scooters. City Attorney Tré Kennedy noted state law on the issue is that battery-powered vehicles are prohibited on sidewalks, but the city might be able to regulate local laws concerning multiuse paths.