Council Committees Vote to Advance Wheaton Library Construction to 2014

Two Montgomery County Council committees voted Monday to advance the Wheaton Library and Recreation Center renovation project in the county’s six-year CIP budget.

Instead of beginning construction in fiscal year 2018 as recommended by the county executive, the committees unanimously voted to move construction funds to fiscal year 2015.

At their March 5 joint meeting, the Planning, Housing, and Economic Development and the Housing and Human Services committees also voted to advance planning and design funding to FY13 and FY14, as proposed by Council Vice President Nancy Navarro.

This decision represents a two-year adjustment of County Executive Isiah Leggett’s Capital Improvement Program recommendations, which allotted design and planning funds in FY15 and FY16. The committees also set aside the council staff’s recommendations to remove construction funding from the six-year CIP altogether.

Before the vote, Councilmember Marc Elrich shared his concerns about the project’s schedule and said that construction should closely follow the design phase. When there’s too long of a gap, “it seems to me that folks have come to us before and said that actually creates problems because the designs become outdated,” he said.

The full council must still vote on the fate of the Wheaton Library and Recreation Center project in the CIP, but the five councilmembers who gave their support today already form a majority: Nancy Navarro, George Leventhal, Marc Elrich, Craig Rice and Nancy Floreen.

Councilmember Hans Riemer, although he does not sit on either committee, also attended to show his support. He said that council is placing a big focus this year on economic development in Wheaton, but “it’s not just about putting up office towers.” Libraries serve people at every stage of life, he added, and a quality community amenity will attract new residents to Wheaton.

“In my vision this is the northern anchor of the Wheaton redevelopment,” Parker Hamilton, director of the county’s Dept. of Libraries, told the councilmembers. Hamilton added that she wants to see the new library complex “sooner rather than later.”

The Dept. of Libraries and the Dept. of Recreation have both submitted the necessary programs of requirement, and the feasibility study is underway.

The $30 million designated as construction funds would act only as a placeholder in the CIP until the design and planning phase can give a more accurate estimate of construction costs.

Councilmember Rice, the council’s lead on libraries, praised the community’s efforts to support libraries.

“We promised and promised, and now it’s time to deliver,” he said.