The Española Public Library is about to enter another round of legislative begging without a director to lead it.
Acting City Manager Veronica Albin said former Library director Ann Moore, who submitted her resignation in early December, did not return after the New Year’s break and did not notify the city that she would be absent.
“The only notification I got was that her last day was the ninth (of January),” Albin said.
Moore, who had told Albin she was resigning to be closer to her daughter in Texas, could not be reached for comment.
Even if Moore had worked through the end of last week, the city would still have found itself unprepared for her departure — it has not even advertised her job yet. Albin said there’s no particular reason for that, though she asked Human Resources Director Jeanie Brito to first contact all the eligible candidates from the last round of hiring, in 2007.
Albin said she’s expecting it will take a month to fill the position. In the meantime, she is contacting former city librarian Marilyn Reeves and retired school librarian Margaret Tapia to discuss a temporary contract to provide stopgap services.
The city has had trouble keeping a librarian since Reeves retired in November 2005 after 18 years of service. Her replacement, James Burnett, resigned in January 2007 amid allegations that he had sexually harassed female staff members and patrons, and surfed for Internet pornography during work hours. Moore started in May 2007 and was paid an annual salary of $44,990.
Espanola Mayor Joseph Maestas said he hopes Albin and Brito are conducting exit interviews to gauge why employees are leaving. But it’s a broader problem than just the library.
“I think in general, if you look at salary levels of our city government, they’re low,” Maestas said.
New Library?
While city staff search for a director, the Library Board is eyeing the big prize — a new library. Board members questioned city Planning Director and legislative coordinator Cyrus Samii Jan. 8 about where that project stands within the city’s overall priorities for this year’s legislative session, which begins Jan. 20.
Despite Samii’s assurances that a library is at the top of the city’s list — he said it’s in the top 10 and then when pressed, top five — the Board was not convinced. The library currently shares an aging building with the recreation center on Paseo de Oñate.
Beulah Sandoval said after years of pressing the City Council to build a new library, the project seems to have been put on the back burner in favor of a railroad museum.
“If the population were to vote, I’m sure they’d rather have a new library than another museum,” Sandoval said.
In October the city obtained federal transportation funding to construct a railroad museum, most likely on the southeast corner of the Plaza, and is currently reviewing work proposals from design firms.
Maestas said that project has been in the works since 2000.
“It’s not that we leapfrogged ahead of the library,” he said. “Finally funds were made available.”
The city plans to ask legislators for start-up funds to design a library facility, and Maestas said it’s time to make a decision regarding the city’s next expensive capital project. He’s pushing for issue of a general-obligation bond, and said that’s the only real option for the projects being considered so far — a new library, a new city hall, or a single combination facility that would house both.
“Forget about federal and state funds,” Maestas said. “Forget about it.”
Maestas said based on property values, the city could borrow approximately $6 million in the form of a bond. Depending on the bond’s structure, city taxpayers would pay off the debt over a period of 10, 15 or 20 years, Maestas said. Such a bond issue has to be approved by voters.
“We don’t have to take full advantage of our bonding capacity, but I think if you’re gonna go to the well you should at least try to get your maximum,” Maestas said.
Library Board member Patrick Trujillo urged the Board to take the lead in pursuing outside funding, and said he’s been researching private grants online. The Board agreed to spend some time researching available grants at its February meeting.
Maestas said if the Board can identify private or even public funding, they could accept it themselves with the city acting as a fiscal agent.
“That’s done all the time, it’s even done with legislative appropriations,” Maestas said. “I don’t think they should wait for the city to find other sources of funding to pay for a new library.”
While weighing funding options, city officials also have to grapple with potential locations for a new library.
In previous years the Library Board had requested a retrofit of the city-owned Post Office building on Bond Street, once that building is vacated in favor of the new Industrial Park Road facility. But Board members told Samii Jan. 8 that they’d essentially scrapped that idea, since the Post Office building would be very costly to renovate.
“We’re amenable to having a library actually on the Plaza,” Board President Clarissa Duran said. “I think that’s what our thoughts are now.”
Samii said it was the first he’d heard of the idea.
The city is looking at a city hall site to the west of the Bond House museum and a potential library site on the Main Street portion of Paseo de Oñate, he said.