Library dreams from Robb Pitts

Last month, CL’s Scott Henry reported on Fulton County at-large Commissioner Robb Pitts’ ambition to replace downtown’s central library with a new facility near Centennial Park. Today Pitts sent out a mass e-mail titled “Atlanta’s Opportunity To Have A World Class Central Library.”

The e-mail includes photos of architecturally pleasing central libraries in other American cities, but does not mention anything about the cost of replacing the current library with a new one.

According to Scott’s report on this last month, a county bond referendum on the November ballot would provide $150 million for the Atlanta-Fulton library system, $40 million of which would be set-aside to renovate the current library.

But an architecturally significant library, like the ones Pitts shared photos of, would cost a lot more than $40 million.

The central library in Denver, included in Pitts’ slide show, was paid for with a $92 million dollar bond issue approved in 1990. Seattle’s public library, also on the Pitts’ list, was paid for with a $196 million bond issue approved by Seattle voters in 1998 (plus $20 million in spare change from Bill Gates).

Call me Gloomy Gus, but there’s too much intra-county ill-feeling in Fulton for me to imagine suburban Fulton voters saying yes to an eight-or-nine-digit bond issue to pay for a trophy library in the middle of Atlanta.

The full text of Pitts’ e-mail follows . . .