SAD 27 commits, almost, to helping fund the Wallagrass Library project

WALLAGRASS - After a lengthy debate during the recent school board meeting in Wallagrass on Feb. 16, the board members approved the funding of $5000 each year for five years to help support the construction of a new library at the Wallagrass Elementary School. The funding for the library from the school district is contingent on the acquisition of a $200,000 Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) for the project.

District Librarian Jamie Pelletier said the Wallagrass town meeting on March 29 will include a question about whether town members would be willing to provide $10 per capita toward the project. She encouraged all residents to come to that meeting to vote on the issue.

The Library Committee had previously approached the U.S. Department of Agriculture for a $25,000 Rural Development grant, which was rejected based on an assessment by the loan officers that the $12 million school budget could afford to contribute $25,000 toward the project.

Pelletier approached the board asking for that sum from SAD 27, centered on this government assessment.

Danny Nicolas acknowledged the work that Pelletier has put into the project, specifically mentioning the good turnout at the school board meeting when he said, "You've done a heck of a job getting the public here."

Chair Barry Ouellette said, "With enrollment being down and everything being hard, the numbers sound fair. I don't know if we can afford it, but it sounds fair."

He recommended taking another look at the proposal.

Prior to the library presentation during the school board meeting, SAD 27 Superintendent Tim Doak had said the district is experiencing one of the highest revenue losses in northern Maine, just behind the Presque Isle and Easton school districts.

This is due in large part to loss of state and federal funding, specifically for special education efforts, and to the increase in local property valuations as a result of the state assessment. He warned that if cuts in the state budget are not shouldered by the Department of Health and Human Services, the future outlook for the school district budget could become even grimmer when the state looks for reductions in the education budget.

Support from board members Joel Bossie and Jim O'Malley, and figures assembled by Chief Financial Officer Lucie Tabor that indicated the school district had supported the construction of two other libraries, one in St. Francis and one in Eagle Lake, at a rate of between $5100 and $8400 a year per building for five years, seemed to turn the tide of board opinion.

Members voted to provide $5000 a year for five years to support the proposed new 2200 square-foot library building, with the stipulation that these monies will only be provided toward the library project in the event that a CDBG application for $200,000 is acquired. Pelletier and the library committee members have already raised $100,000 over the course of three years.

Pelletier said the school board meeting was fulfilling the public hearing requirement attached to the upcoming CDBG application.

The grant is competitive and will only be awarded to one Aroostook County project at a time. The larger the number of people who sign the public hearing attendance sheet list, the better the score for the project application. Approximately 40 people were present in the audience at the school board meeting, in addition to approximately 20 people on the board and at the administrator's table.

Pelletier said the Library Committee's vision for the new library was as a community library and meeting place. The CDBG competition for the library project is a community center in Ashland.

Pelletier received assistance from various people with the presentation to the board members, including Jay Charette, principal of the Wallagrass, Eagle Lake, and St. Francis elementary schools, who introduced the presentation and emphasized the space issues at the Wallagrass Elementary School. Students in Lori Levesque's sixth grade class also read aloud a class assignment, persuasive writing pieces about the library. Those students were Josh Taggett, Devon Rioux, Leah Pelletier, Jordan O'Leary, and Michelle Toussaint.

Amy Ouellette, a Wallagrass parent, spoke up in favor of the new library at the beginning of the meeting and said, "We may not be able to expose [our children] to a lot of things, but a book can. It's time that we give them more of what they need."