Large Community Room, Pleasant Hill City Hall, 100 Gregory Lane, Pleasant Hill, CA 94523
Attendees:
Michael Harris, Pleasant Hill City Council
Sue Noack, Pleasant Hill City Council
Lisa Chow, Supervisor Mitchoff’s Office
Sandy Bonato, PH Recreation & Park District Board
Sherry Sterrett, PH Recreation & Park District Board
Jack Prosek, Pleasant Hill Library Fund
Diane Longshore, resident
Jeff McDaniel, MDUSD
Patrick Remer, PH Library
Susan Weaver, Friends of the Library
Chris Thomas, PH Chamber
Katherine Bracken, PH Library Commissioner
Craig Peterson, PH Historical Society
Sharon Peterson, PH Historical Society
Jacqueline Byrne, Resident
Kim Brandt, Resident
Lenore Krause, Resident
Terry Gerbracht, Resident
Ann Luke, PH Chamber
Diane Longshore, Resident
Dana Matthews, PH Historical Society
June Catalano, City Manager
Danielle Habr, City staff
Martin Nelis, City staff
Public Comment
There was no public comment.
Reports from Sub-committees
Needs Assessment
Chair Harris gave a brief report on the previous meeting at which representatives from the Friends of the Library, the PH Historical Society and the Genealogy Group at the library had discussed the desire to have designated space within a new library for their organizations. The subcommittee will further review the space layout based on a 20,000sf and 25,000sf building.
Outreach Subcommittee
Patrick Remer reported that the Friends of the Library had recently upgraded their website to give it a more robust look. In the future, the Friends website would be an important tool in promoting the new library project.
Funding Subcommittee
Councilmember Noack reported on the funding subcommittee meeting. She stated that the committee discussed how to finance the construction of the new library and that the committee felt that a possible sales tax measure would be the best way to raise the necessary funds. She also commented that the committee was proposing to the Task Force that it make a recommendation to the City to conduct a poll of city residents to gauge the potential support for such a tax measure.
Kim Brandt expressed concern about needing a tax measure to build the library. She asked if the City was able to build the City Hall complex without increasing taxes, why was it not possible to build the new library in a similar manner. City Manager June Catalano responded that the City Hall complex was built using redevelopment funds available to the City. Since redevelopment was no longer an option, some type of revenue generating measure would probably be required to build the new library. Although the City Hall complex was almost fully paid off, the funds being used for this payment were being re-programmed to pay for other infrastructure needs for the City.
Kim Brandt suggested than rather than using a tax measure, the City and the Rec & Park District form a Joint Powers Authority and use their bonding capacity to purchase the land necessary and build the library and ballfields. Chair Harris suggested that the Funding subcommittee explore this possibility at their next meeting. He suggested that a representative from the Rec & Park District attend the Funding subcommittee meetings to participate in this discussion.
Chair Harris asked the Task Force to approve a recommendation from the Funding subcommittee that the City conduct a sample poll of city residents to gauge potential support for a revenue generating measure through a sales tax increase or bond measure to build the new library.
Board member Sterrett stated that outreach and education should be done before surveying the voting public.
After further discussion, it was agreed to agendize the issue of doing a poll to be discussed and acted upon at the next meeting of the Task Force.
Discussion regarding adding a representative from the Pleasant Hill Chamber of Commerce to the Library Task Force
Pleasant Hill Chamber representatives, Ann Luke and Chris Thomas, expressed the desire to have a Chamber representative on the Task Force. The Task Force agreed to this appointment.
Future Meetings
The Task Force agreed to meet again at 11:00 a.m. on December 14, 2015. The Task Force adjourned at 11:50 am.