Warren City Council approves new library, despite mayor’s questions

WARREN — After years of contention and delays, a new library is coming to south Warren.

The Warren Library Commission approved the project on July 17. At its Aug. 26 meeting, the City Council unanimously approved the construction of a new library at Underwood Park, south of Toepfer Road and just east of Schoenherr Road.

However, an email sent by Warren Mayor Lori Stone the morning of the meeting — which was circulated on social media — raised a number of questions, including whether or not the City Council had been provided or if they had generated a budget to demonstrate that funding is sustainable, which could be used to determine whether the library was something that was needed or wanted.

The questions raised in her email, Stone said, come from not seeing a projected budget for operating the library over the next five years.

“I raised a couple of issues that I really hoped council would take up, and if they could provide me answers to these questions, I’d be more than willing to entertain it,” she said. “But to date, in the last roughly 18 months since I took office and this has been brought up, no one has provided me a budget projection for the next five years.”

Stone, in her email, asked if staffing would be spread thin throughout the library system. She asked if there would be enough personnel to cover vacations, sick time and time off without closing other branches, and whether or not comparable operating hours could be offered at the fifth branch.

In response, at the Aug. 26 City Council meeting, Councilman Johnathan Lafferty said the budget started with 33 positions, but only 24 were funded.

“We started with 24 funded positions, and the recommended budget was 33 positions,” Lafferty said. “We eliminated all of those additional positions because we said we’re not going to need to fund those positions throughout the entire fiscal year. Now, what I find interesting is that the mayor recommended this to us.”

However, Stone said the positions were cut because when the budget was adopted, there was no operational branch.

“The reason it was cut was because there is no operational branch,” she said. “The budget the council adopted is because they were in agreement that there is no operational branch.”

Hiring additional people, Stone said, would cause the library fund balance to deplete faster, which Stone said would be depleted within five years if there wasn’t a millage increase due to the additional branch. If the current millage doesn’t completely fund the library system, Stone worries other city services may not be funded.

“What are we not funding in this city because the millage does not match the operational cost?” she said.

Stone said it feels disingenuous to build the branch without being able to accurately tell residents what it will cost to operate the library.

“Warren is looking at spreading its resources thinner, and if that is what Warren residents prefer and are willing to fund, bring it to the voters on a millage … To me, it’s disingenuous to build the branch and then make the community fund it,” she said.

However, despite Stone’s questions, members of the City Council voted unanimously to approve the construction of the library. They were met with cheers and applause from the audience at the meeting.