After a brief but sometimes testy conversation Tuesday morning, the Cobb Board of Commissioners approved the completion of funding for the new Sewell Mill Library and Cultural Center on Lower Roswell Road.
The board voted 3-2 to spend $284,227 to fund five full- and part-time positions for fiscal year 2018 in order to proceed with the opening of the new facility on Dec. 4.
East Cobb commissioner Bob Ott, chairman Boyce and commissioner Bob Weatherford voted yes; commissioners JoAnn Birrell and Lisa Cupid voted no.
Operations at the East Marietta Library, located adjacent to the new Sewell Mill branch, are expected to wind down this week.
The funding includes the transfer of $94,491 from the budget for the East Cobb Government Service Center, which will move some of its business office functions to the tag office in the same building (previous East Cobb News post here).
Ott said he worked with staff from the Cobb library, parks and public services staff to pare down the price tag for the Sewell Mill Library funding from around $700,000 to less than $300,000. The funding source is from “one-time monies” that has become a touchy topic on the commission as it voted this summer not to raise the property tax millage rate and as it adopted the FY 2018 budget with nearly $20 million in contingency funding.
That approved budget didn’t include Sewell Mill Library funding. Ott and Boyce said the county was obligated to move ahead with the transition now due to contractual obligations in demolishing the East Marietta Library building, creating a parking lot for the new library and rebuilding the road that leads into the adjacent Sewell Park.
“The reality is we have a $10 million investment the board has known about for years, and it’s been dropped in my lap,” Boyce said, then veering into a philosophical statement.
“Libraries reflect the culture of our society,” he said. “It is important to open up this facility that residents have been expecting for a long time.”
Birrell and Cupid objected to funding the Sewell Mill Library now, saying they wanted take up the matter at a commissioners retreat later this month. Birrell suggested a delay in opening the new branch until January.
“I understand that we can’t build things like this and then leave them empty,” she said. “My concern is the timing.”
Cupid concurred: “Why this can’t wait another 20 days is beyond me.”
She cited other unmet funding requests—including Cobb non-profits, the purchase of police body cameras and wish lists from other government agencies—as equally valid, and questioned the wisdom of using contingency funding for sustained expenses.
“There’s no way of knowing if we’re going to have this money year after year after year,” Cupid said.
Ott, who had suggested closing another library in his district, the Lewis A. Ray branch in Smyrna, to solve the contingency problem, became visibly upset.
“Don’t sit here and make inaccuracies,” Ott snapped, demanding that Cupid not interrupt him. “You did not reach out to address your concerns.”
Cupid said the finalized agenda item for Tuesday’s meeting came to her late.
Boyce said the vote over Sewell Mill Library funding is “the first of many battles we’re going to have” because the board voted against his proposal in July to raise the millage rate 0.13 mills (previous East Cobb News post here).
Weatherford said that amounts to just $4 million, or one percent, of the overall county budget, so “blaming everything on that vote is erroneous.”
Birrell, who had suggested closing the East Cobb Library during the budget process, reiterated her concerns of getting into a habit of dipping into contingency.
“We’re going to be digging a deeper deficit that we’re never going to overcome with one-time money,” she said.
