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Proposal for Jackson Milton public library gets another look
YOUNGSTOWN
A proposal for a new Jackson-Milton public-library branch is being revived after voter approval last fall of the new 1.8-mill countywide library levy.
The library branch was first proposed in 2008 at a cost of about $1.4 million, but it was shelved after a recession-induced decline in funding for the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County.
The new library will be built on land along Mahoning Avenue donated by the Jackson-Milton School District and located within walking distance of the district’s new junior and senior high school complex.
“It helps enrich the community. We’re working with the schools and providing library service very near the schools, so there’s a partnership there that’s valuable to the community,” said Janet Loew, library communications and public relations director.
The new North Jackson building would replace the separate North Jackson and Lake Milton library branches, which the library system occupies rent-free but does not own.
A goal of the project is to allow the library system to maintain one building in northwest Mahoning County with one staff and one collection of computers, books and other library materials, Loew said.
The new building, which was discussed at Thursday’s meeting of the library system’s board of trustees, will be designed by Architect Ronald Cornell Faniro.
“We’re going to be surveying the collections that they want to put in the library, surveying the public, what their expectations are in the community out there, and, of course, finding out what the needs of the library are,” Faniro said.
Public meetings will be scheduled concerning the project in the Jackson- Milton area during the formative stages of the project, said Carlton Sears, director of the 16-branch library system.
The library system’s new five-year real-estate tax levy will generate about $7,292,000 annually.
In campaigning for that levy, library officials said the new local revenue was needed to offset a 34 percent loss of state revenue since 2001.
Passage of the levy enabled the library board to increase its operating budget from $11.69 million last year to $18.62 million this year.