After several East Cobb residents objected to the possibility of closing the East Cobb Library on Tuesday, the Cobb commissioner making the proposal strongly defended her position, and laid out a detailed set of numbers in making her case.
JoAnn Birrell, who represents Northeast Cobb, said at the end of a long Board of Commissioners meeting that “this has never been a personal agenda” but instead addresses what she terms as an issue of duplication of services.
She said she’s proposing the East Cobb Library closure because of the new Sewell Mill Library and Cultural Center that will open before the end of the year, replacing the adjacent East Marietta Library.
The two libraries are located five miles apart on Lower Roswell Road, and carry some expensive operating costs, Birrell said. (That’s also about the same distance between the two East Cobb-area libraries in her district, the Mountain View Regional Library on Sandy Plains Road, and the Gritters branch off Canton Road.)
The East Cobb Library opened in the Parkaire Landing Shopping Center in 2010, after being previously known as the Merchants Walk Library and relocated when that shopping center was redeveloped.
“This is about being a responsible steward of the taxpayers’ money,” Birrell said, reading from a written statement, adding that budget decisions will be made by the board, not one commissioner.
The East Cobb Library closure plans were first made public last Thursday, at a town hall meeting held by East Cobb commissioner Bob Ott, who said Birrell “has been relentless” in proposing the move (East Cobb News coverage here).
Birrell said her proposal “was just one” cost-saving suggestion as the commission was presented last week with a proposed FY 2018 budget of $890 million, including $21.5 million in one-time reserve funding to avoid a property tax increase.
After hearing protests to the closure plan earlier Tuesday at the first formal public hearing on the budget, Birrell said the consolidation of Cobb libraries has been “years in the making,” and referenced the 2011 budget crunch. In the wake of the recession and a steep decline in the Cobb tax digest, then-commission Chairman Tim Lee proposed permanently closing 13 of the 17 county library branches, including East Cobb and East Marietta.
But he backed down after vocal public opposition. While no branches were closed, library hours and staffing levels were reduced.
Most of the funding for the new 8,600-square-foot Sewell Mill library complex, which will include an amphitheater and other cultural arts space, comes from the 2016 Cobb government SPLOST (special local option sales tax) approved by county voters.
Birrell said the new library will have annual staffing and operating costs of roughly $732,000. The East Marietta Library currently costs around $524,000 a year to run, according to her figures.
The East Cobb Library, she said, not only has annual staffing and operating costs estimated at $771,000 a year, but another $263,000 a year, ($21,961 a month) is paid out in lease costs at Parkaire Landing.
For that kind of money, Birrell said, the county “could hire three police officers” as part of a larger recommendation in a recent police chiefs’ report that Cobb add 60 more officers to meet current public safety needs.
Several East Cobb residents spoke out against the library proposal, with one speaker, Rachel Slomovitz, referring to the East Cobb branch as “the life of East Cobb.”
Among them were parents of children who were shocked to hear of the plans. One mother, Shu Zhang, whose children attend Mt. Bethel Elementary School, said she has to drag them out of the library “because they love it so much.”
The library also has become like a “second school” for young patrons since it’s open until 9 p.m. on Monday-Wednesday.
East Cobb resident Gus Makris said his whole family makes frequent use of the East Cobb Library, which is the second-busiest in terms of circulation in the Cobb system. Around 157,000 materials have been checked out thus far this year; the Mountain View branch has had around 175,000 volumes in circulation in 2017.
“Everybody uses it, because it’s in the right spot,” Makris said, referring to the Parkaire location at the intersection of Lower Roswell and Johnson Ferry roads. “It has an extensive value” that goes beyond dollar figures.
“It matters.”
But another resident who lives near the East Cobb branch said that “we have three libraries in East Cobb” while other parts of the county are underserved.
Birrell said that while “I love our libraries and appreciate our patrons, I want to be a good steward of taxpayer money.”
Ott didn’t mention the library issue during Tuesday’s meeting. At his town hall meeting last week, he said he would propose closing an underperforming library in his district, but didn’t specify it by name, and find other savings by shifting some services to the East Cobb Library from the East Cobb Government Service Center.
Birrell said if the East Cobb Library were to close permanently, it wouldn’t be right away. She said a transition period of six months to a year “should be sufficient.”
