What happens to the new Boise library after Tuesday’s vote? Bieter has one idea
Mayor David Bieter says he has heard the voters and will recommend to the Boise City Council “an immediate reset” to the proposed new main library.
Bieter sent an email through his campaign on Monday announcing the reset. That reset could mean the end of the $11 million contract with architect Moshe Safdie, Bieter campaign manager Robert West said in a phone call.
Voters rebuked City Hall last week when they voted overwhelmingly to approve Propositions 1 and 2, which require future citywide elections on any city library project costing more than $25 million (the most recent cost estimates for the library put it at $104 million) and on any stadium projects costing more than $5 million in public or private money.
“A new Main Library is vital to our community and I am committed to seeing one built, but last Tuesday voters made it clear they want to see a different version of the project,” Bieter said in the release. “I have heard them and agree we need another robust, community-wide conversation to see the completion of the project along with our priorities of increasing affordable housing and improving transportation across every neighborhood.”
The plan would be for more community conversations on the library to get a better feel for what people are wanting, West said. The city has already held 30 public events for the library, he said, but new ones would be different because people are more engaged.
It’s not yet clear when the reset would go before the City Council. West said it could be as soon as the next meeting, which will take place at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 19. Bieter was unavailable for comment, as was a spokesman for the mayor’s office.
Bieter is asking the council to take things “back to the drawing board,” West said, which would put everything back on the table. That includes the budget, which officials have capped at $85 million. It also includes the design of the library.
Spending for a new main Boise library
The city has already spent about $3 million on Safdie’s contract.
An August 2018 analysis of the library’s cost by a consultant indicated that if everything from Safdie’s conceptual design was included, the library would cost $103 million, including $11.8 million for a parking garage. That was more than Bieter and the City Council said they were willing to approve.
After that, the mayor’s office has said the city staff would use “value engineering” to bring the cost down to $85 million by using lower-cost materials and making less expensive choices on the specifics of the design. The city also expected to delay the construction of the event center planned as part of the project.
But those savings were overtaken by rising construction costs. Mayoral spokesman Mike Journee said in August that the similarity of the old cost estimate and the new was coincidental.
Bieter said then that the city would consider other options that could include changing the design, “assessing whether an easing of market forces could help the project’s financial position” or raising more money than anticipated from philanthropy.
West said Monday that all donors are still committed to the project.
How does this play into the election?
In Tuesday’s election, Bieter came in second to City Council President Lauren McLean among seven candidates, and no candidate won a majority, so Bieter will face McLean in a Dec. 3 runoff election.
When Bieter postponed the library in August, McLean told the Statesman that “public concerns were not heard and heeded.” She also went on social media and posted that the postponement “should have - and could have - happened months ago.”
In response, Bieter’s campaign pointed to how McLean was on the panel that chose the project’s architect and that she supported the decision to move the project forward. A Bieter campaign news release said she “flip-flops her stance and tries to skirt responsibility for decisions she was a part of.”
West said Monday that Bieter’s reset decision was based on a “continuous collection of data and feedback,” while McLean “changes her mind on a whim,”
McLean, in response, said that “sounded like a typical response from a career politician.”
“It didn’t take a bad election night for me to understand our residents want leaders that will listen,” she said during a phone call Monday. Bieter’s decision could have been made months ago, she said.
Asked what she as a member of the council would do with Bieter’s request to reset, she said, “I look forward to building consensus for a library that’s celebrated by the community.”
Library as a campaign issue
Boise Working Together, a community group, collected thousands of signatures from Boise voters to get the library on the ballot in a measure now known as Prop 1.
It came to light in July that Bieter’s campaign donated $1,000 to a political action committee called Protect Our Libraries, a group that wanted Boise Working Together’s petition initiative to fail. Protect Our Libraries was not successful, and more than 5,000 registered Boise voters signed petitions.
The City Council had the chance to adopt the initiative (and a similar one focused on a proposed sports stadium) together, but ultimately opted not to. Instead, the council, including McLean, unanimously passed an ordinance that would call for a public hearing on projects that cost $25 million or more in general funds. At that public hearing the council would decide whether to call a vote, according to the ordinance.
The hearing never took place, once Bieter put the library project on hold.
On Election Day, 69.1% of voters approved Prop 1.
City Council’s next move
Elaine Clegg, president pro tem of the City Council, said Monday that she is “absolutely for” a reset.
“That’s what I’ve been calling for,” she said by phone. “As an individual, I’ve thought we needed to go back and look at elements and look at what works and what doesn’t. If we have to start completely over, we have to start completely over.”
TJ Thomson, another council member, agreed.
“If we continue down the path of a new library, regardless of who is the mayor, we need to reassess it,” he said.
Council member Holli Woodings said the amount of work required to get to where the project is now took years.
“A lot of really good work that went into the planning,” she said by phone. “Which pieces are still going to be useful to us? Which pieces are the ones that need to go? There’s a lot to think about it, and we don’t do it alone — the library commission does a bulk of the work, for instance. I’m interested to see how far we need to go back to figure this out.”
This story was originally published November 11, 2019 at 12:25 PM.
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