Posted by Magda
Councillors last week amended a recommendation to lease space for the library in a future complex on Baker Street. They decided it should be left open-ended, so the city could either decide to lease the space or to own it.
That surprised me. Norm McLeod, the chief librarian, told me last week that Guelph had set up its four branches for the cost it's taken other libraries to set up a single branch, largely because our branches are in leased space.
There's no doubt a bunch of confounding issues here -- the difficulty of finding a developer to build what the city envisions, for one. But if leasing really is so much cheaper, the city would be well-served by strongly weighing that option.
True, but do you recall the fiasco that was the public-private partnership to build what is now known as the Sleeman Centre? There was no transparency due to a private developer being involved, and I believe the city was saddled with a bunch of unexpected costs due to the failure of Nustadia. Leasing is one thing but the city entering into a P3 agreement with a developer is another. I'd rather see the city buy the library outright than go down the P3 route again.
Posted by: dsills | January 21, 2008 at 08:46 PM
My younger brother Alan (he's the calm one with the excellently dry sense of humour) wrote an excellent piece on the rationale for having the main branch of a public library in property that's owned rather than rented. Rather than send Mercury readers to a Tribune page I'll suggest people read his "Year of Decisions For Library System" at http://www.alanpickersgill.ca/index.html its worth the read.
Posted by: Edward Pickersgill | January 22, 2008 at 12:38 AM