City recommends against central Thunder Bay Public Library branch ahead of council debate on its future

The future of the Thunder Bay Public Library (TBPL) will be up for debate on Monday, with council discussing whether to move forward with a proposed new central library branch in the northwestern Ontario city.

In a new report, however, city administration recommends that council vote against the move.

The TBPL has been pushing for the new central branch, which would be located at Intercity Shopping Centre, along with some other changes to the current library system.

The TBPL has come forward with three possible scenarios:

However, in its report, city administration recommends that council vote to keep the status quo — that is, maintain the Waverley, Brodie, Mary J.L. Black and County Fair branches — and perform any necessary upgrades and renovations.

While the TBPL is an independent body and any sort of future initiatives, structures, products and services are the sole responsibility of the library board, the report says the city "does have an important role in ensuring that it is comfortable with the financing provided to the TBPL."

"It also has a role in determining acceptable risk for that financing and in examining potential liabilities to the city," the report says. "Finally, council can and should consider impacts to the community that may indirectly occur due to the decisions made by the TBPL."

To that end, the city recommends against the new central library, as either scenario that includes the new branch would require "additional municipal debt, significant investment in a leased space and indirect impacts on the south core with the sale of Brodie Library," the report states.

Library CEO Richard Togman said he was disappointed when he saw administration's recommendation.

"II think a holistic understanding of the nature of the project obviously has to include the benefits to the library and the benefits to the community," he said. "I think one of the things that council needs to remember is that the library is not simply a budget item on the city's budget.

"The library is really part of the community, and how they really need to evaluate the project is looking at the very high cost in terms of the status quo, both from a financial and from a community impact, and then the real benefits that this project delivers not only to the library system but to the community at large."

The TBPL facilities master plan, which was released publicly last month and is available online, says keeping the status quo would require an investment of about $9.4 million in the existing library buildings and about $7.6 million in annual operating costs.

Scenario 2, meanwhile, would require annual operating costs of about $8.1 million and Scenario 3 about $7.6 million.

Scenarios 2 and 3 would also allow for more programming space and longer operating hours than the status quo.