The Weber County Commissioners held a public hearing on March 19th to consider a face value 49.75 million dollar citizen-bond vote to build a new, much larger branch library in Roy, to refurbish the main library in Ogden, and move the headquarters to Roy, and to move services from North Ogden that are now in the basement to Roy, and remodel the North Ogden Branch basement. According to Dan Olsen of Weber County, the principal, plus interest, for the multi-decade year bond would actually be 58 million. This would raise taxes $11.00 per $100,000 of residential property value for the duration of the bond. Taxes for commercial property would rise 40 percent more than that.
Lynnda Wangsgard, County appointed president of the Weber County Library Board, introduced representatives from various firms that have been involved in drawing up plans so far. Although Commissioner Kerry Gibson, who was conducting the meeting recognized some in the audience who were opposed to the proposal, all who spoke were in favor of most aspects except that Dave Hartman of the Ogden-Weber Chamber of Commerce spoke in favor of frugality, a sentiment that was echoed by Commissioners Zogmaister and Bell.
Commissioner Kerry Gibson expressed some concerns about the “idea floating around” for a special vote by mail election in June for a bond to be possibly combined with an Ogden vote. His concern is that there would not be a good voter turnout. He mentioned that the legislature has made it mandatory in the future for bond votes to correspond with November elections only; although this time it would not apply. In the end, the commissioners voted to postpone their decision until the next time they meet on March 26, 2013.
The possibilities at that time, according to the discussion, would be to postpone the vote until later in the year, and/or reduce the bond amount put forward to the voters.
