Cobb asks state Gritters Library funding

Facing a $2.5 million shortfall to rebuild the Gritters Library branch, the Cobb Board of Commissioners voted Tuesday to seek additional state funds.

The board voted 3-0 to apply for a $1 million grant from Georgia Public Library Services, a division of the state board of regents, that would go toward construction costs.

In late 2021, commissioners approved an $8.6 million construction contract, including $1.9 million from the state, to build the Northeast Cobb library branch that’s nearly 50 years old, as well as renovate the adjacent Northeast Cobb Community Center.

The current Gritters branch has outdated restrooms and poor drainage has resulted in mold and mildew.

Among the programs that would be part of the new building would include digital literacy training and job training and workforce development with CobbWorks.

In 2018, Cobb commissioners approved spending $2.9 million from the 2016 Cobb SPLOST to renovate Gritters, but a rebuild of the branch was recommended at a cost of $6.8 million.

There was a groundbreaking for the new library in December 2021. But rising construction costs have pushed the price tag to $10.5 million. Last September, commissioner JoAnn Birrell asked her colleagues to approve using county reserve funds to make up the difference, but she couldn’t get the support and withdrew the request.

“It’s near and dear to my heart and it kills me not to be able to move this forward,” she said at the time. “We’ve got some work to do, but we’ll get there.”

It’s not clear where the rest of the funding would come from if another state grant is approved, and at Tuesday’s meeting, Birrell wasn’t on the dais to speak to the issue.

She and fellow Republican commissioner Keli Gambrill were spectators in the board room, removed from their seats after being ruled in in violation of board policies by abstaining from voting in a dispute over the commission’s electoral maps.

Abby Shiffman, an East Cobb resident who is head of the Cobb library system’s board of trustees, said during a public comment session that the Gritters project was first identified in 2014. The current branch, built in 1973 in Shaw Park she said, has been declared a “subpar building” by Cobb property management officials.

She countered comments at a Monday work session that library officials “keep coming back for more funds . . . but this is not true.

“This is not just a rebuild of a library in dire need,” Shiffman said. “This is an investment to fit the meeds of our taxpayers and all of the citizens of Cobb County.”

Before the vote, Cobb Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid said that “we will be looking for unique ways to support this” but she did not suggest how the rest of the funding would be derived.

Based on public feedback, she told her colleagues, “this is an important project and I appreciate your support in moving this forward.”

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