By Steve Huffman
shuffman@salisburypost.com
SPENCER ó Discussion of the town library came up Monday during a meeting of the Spencer Historic Preservation Commission.
Two town residents addressed the board on the matter, and an e-mail from a third resident was read by Bob Oswald, commission chairman. The library, the centerpiece of Library Park, was closed last week by members of the Board of Aldermen after it was pointed out that lead-based paint was flaking from the building’s walls.
Members of the Preservation Commission don’t have say over the closing of the library, but the old school building is a part of the town’s historic district.
“I believe the library is one of the little jewels that remains in Spencer,” town resident Beth Nance told commission members.
Ron Kester, the other resident to address the commission, also urged members to do all they could do to save the library, but his words had more of a sting.
“We need to look at the library and not let it get out of our hands,” he said.
A little more than two years ago, Kester belonged to a committee whose members worked to raise funds for the library’s renovation. He said members met with Salisbury architect Bill Burgin, who designed a plan.
The cost, Kester said, totaled $2.3 million, but he said the end result would have been a “perfect building.” He said it would have included a kitchen, an elevator and a combination dining/meeting hall where 300 people could eat.
“It could have given this town a sense of identity,” Kester said. “I’d like this to be a calling card.”
Instead, he blamed town leaders for not becoming more involved in the project, and said the library’s disrepair is a continued sign of Spencer’s downturn.
“I don’t want to see it crumble,” Kester said of the town. “It’s crumbling.”
He said he had visited the small town of Biscoe, where leaders had completed a similar project with one of their historic buildings. Kester said Biscoe got government loans at 4 percent annual interest for the project, but wasn’t much more precise when it came to telling commission members how the town ought to pay for the repairs to the library.
He said he was told by the previous Board of Aldermen that a committee would be organized to continue studying the library. Kester asked Monday if such a committee existed and was told it didn’t.
But when Kester said some members of the town staff purposely “wanted to see the library die,” turning to Town Manager Larry Smith for emphasis, he was asked to be quiet.
“As a point of order,” Smith replied, “personal attacks can be discussed outside the meeting room.”
Mayor Jody Everhart denied town leaders weren’t doing all they could to help restore the building. He said when members of the Board of Aldermen held a planning retreat earlier this year, the library’s renovation was one of their top five priorities.
“It’ll take every citizen working together” to pull off the project, Everhart said.
He agreed with everyone involved that financing is the major obstacle. Everhart said surveys indicated only about 2 percent of the town’s residents use the library, though he admitted that number would surely increase if the facility was renovated.
Everhart mentioned a tax increase of 20 cents per $100 valuation might be needed to fund the project and said almost every town resident would surely balk at the hike.
He also said it’s likely to cost “several” hundreds of thousands of dollars to just stabilize the building. When the most recent fund drive was held to raise money for the library’s renovation, about $30,000 was generated.
Everhart said he and Smith were planning to meet with members of a local civic group next week to discuss the library. Everhart said he’s hoping club members will have suggestions on someone they might use for grant writing for the project, or someone they might know who’ll be able to help in other means of fund raising.
The Spencer library is not part of the Rowan Public Library system. Officials said the library is too close to the system’s headquarters in Salisbury to designate it a satellite branch.
Kester said earlier in Monday’s meeting that representatives of the Rowan Public Library said they could deliver books to the Spencer library daily.
Everhart said he was told the deliveries could possibly be made three days a week, but said the Spencer library would first have to be set up to accept the system’s library cards.
The e-mail that Oswald read concerning the library was written by Jatana Patterson, also a Spencer resident.
“Now that a decision has been made to close the library until this problem can be addressed, it will likely go the same route as other issues in the town,” she wrote. “Close the library, ‘toxic’ paint problem solved. No cost! No more problem! Forget about it or continue using the same tired old excuse that we don’t have the money and we certainly don’t want our taxes to go up!
“If the closing of the library is allowed to go unchallenged this library will remain closed, falling into complete and utter disrepair and the next step will be to condemn the structure as a safety hazard and tear it down!!
“Granted, that may be several years down the road, but it will happen.”