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Library board approves plan for construction of new facility in Markle

It was a split vote, with some members missing from the Huntington City-Township Public Library Board of Trustees, but the board decided 3-2 to move ahead with plans to build a new library building in Markle.

Library Board President Peggy Caley said members heard from HCTPL Executive Director Rebecca Lemons at their meeting on Monday, Nov. 10.
Lemons presented the results of a survey sent to Markle residents to help determine if a new building should be constructed in Markle or whether a library should exist in Markle at all.

After gathering the feedback from the surveys, Caley says, Lemons recommended the board move ahead with plans to build the new building, purchasing the site of the current Markle Town Hall and demolishing the building to construct the new library.

“She recommends we maintain a physical presence in Markle,” Caley says. “A motion was made that we move forward with our plan with the town, starting with the drafting of the joint resolution that is needed for the land to change hands for the property.”

The joint resolution would be signed by both the library board and Markle Town Council members, the first step in the deal to sell the property to HCTPL.

Once the new library building is constructed, the town hall office will then move into the present library location at 197 E. Morse St., a building the town owns and has been leasing to HCTPL. A majority of the members of each board would need to sign the resolution.

“That motion, since it passed, should be a done deal,” Caley says. “It’s in good faith with the Town of Markle — we are moving forward.”

But she adds that the library’s tax levy is 33 percent less than it was 10 years ago. The levy can, legally, increase 1 or 2 percent each year, she says, to allow for inflation. However, Caley says the library’s budget has remained steady over the years and it hasn’t needed the increased levy.

Lemons says the results of the surveys “made up” her mind about the project. She says she wanted to make sure due diligence was performed and she had some concrete numbers before giving her recommendation.

“What we really found was that we have a good support for the branch in Markle,” she says. “There are a lot of people who use it on a regular basis. We just need to look at tweaking some things around to make it more useful for people.”

Some of those changes include expanded hours and adding more adult books to the Markle Library’s offerings.

Caley says a meeting room and a room for tutoring students was also among the requests for the new building.

Lemons is now in the process of putting together a building committee. Already a city employee, a Markle community member, board members and library staff representatives have been recruited to oversee the new building project. She says the committee will have its first meeting within the next three weeks.

The next meeting of the library board will be Monday, Dec. 15, at 5 p.m. at the Huntington library. The joint resolution is expected to come before the board to be signed. The board also expects to hear a report from the building committee.