MAYOR TO WORK FOR FREE TO SUPPORT NEW LOGAN LIBRARY
On February 21, Logan City Mayor Craig Petersen recommended to the City Council that a new library/community center be built at the site where the Emporium and Poco Loco buildings are now located. The new facility will draw people into Logan’s downtown and make more effective use of a location that has been vastly under-utilized for decades and has little prospect for change without City involvement. This project will be a significant undertaking for the City. The preliminary budget is $12,000,000. No tax increase will be needed. Most of the funding has already been identified from existing City resources. Current and accruing library building fund reserves will generate $4,300,000. City properties that have recently been sold will provide $2,900,000 and other City reserves specifically designated for economic development another $2,000,000. The funding plan is that the remaining $2,800,000 needed for the library/community center will be raised from private donations. A library fund-raising effort will begin immediately. To start that campaign, Mayor Petersen will work without pay for the remaining ten months of 2017. Pending approval by the City Council at its March 7 meeting, his salary and the associated benefits, totaling $93,000, will be donated to the Library Building Fund. According to Petersen, “This is an important project for Logan City and for me personally. I want to demonstrate my strong commitment by being the first to contribute to the fund-raising effort. I hope that others will see the need for and value of a new library/community center and financially support this important project.” Along with the private fund-raising effort, the next step in the process will be to form a small steering committee whose first task will be to select an architectural firm to design the facility. The steering committee will also provide on-going guidance for the project.