Department of Commerce rejects Birch Bay library scope change

Whatcom County Library System (WCLS) and Birch Bay library supporters are back to the drawing board after the Washington State Department of Commerce turned down a proposal to use an existing grant for a downscaled library project. WCLS can still use the state grant toward the larger library project that had been previously planned or the community can fully fund a smaller project without the grant.

Staff told the WCLS Board of Trustees at its January 17 meeting that the department of commerce had denied a scope change request to change the $6.5 million project to a $2.5 million library express. The smaller library was planned to have a small browsing collection, book return, improved parking and an ADA accessible entrance.

WCLS executive director Christine Perkins said after the meeting that WCLS wasn’t told why the department denied the scope change for a smaller library. Perkins said WCLS is exploring whether it can come up with a different proposal but is unsure if it can.

Birch Bay voters twice narrowly rejected creating a library capital facility area that would have created a taxing district to pay for $4 million of the $6.5 million library project. Voters opposed the district in the November 2021 and February 2022 elections, the latter of which failed the supermajority by only 26 votes. Last June, the trustees decided a $2.5 million interior remodel of the building to create a library express would be the best option. 

If the trustees pursued the smaller library design without the state grant, Friends of Birch Bay Library (FOBBL) would need to fundraise $2.5 million. WCLS can ask the state to reallocate the $2 million grant for the $6.5 million library but that would mean FOBBL would have two years to fundraise $4.5 million. Perkins said they are not currently considering putting a taxing district before voters. 

“Raising $2.5 million seems like a big stretch,” Perkins said. “Raising $5 million sounds like even more.”

FOBBL president Dianne Marrs-Smith said after the meeting that the grassroots group would ultimately go for the library design that the community wants, but she believed it would be easier to start with the smaller design. FOBBL has raised $236,000 for the library.

“We need to be clear on what we want to do. We need to say, ‘This is it. This is what we’re doing’ and we need to go for it,” Marrs-Smith said during the meeting. “We need to be able to say, ‘We’re fundraising for this’ whether it’s 7,600 square feet or 1,700 and we need to stick to that.”

FOBBL will host numerous fundraisers this year including an online Love Your Library campaign in February, bocce ball tournament and BBQ this summer and will attend Birch Bay Chamber of Commerce’s special events.

“We would love to improve services in Birch Bay and hopefully the Birch Bay community is able to find a way to support a facility there,” WCLS deputy director Michael Cox said. “We want to help that effort as much as possible but ultimately the model in the Whatcom County Library System is that the local communities provide the facilities that we provide services in.”

Cox said he expected the department of commerce would contact WCLS in the next few weeks asking whether they wanted to reappropriate the state funding. Cox said WCLS could reapply for the funds in the future, but Perkins warned that had its caveats.

The state gave the grant during the first round of funding for the Library Capital Improvement Program when the criteria for selecting grants wasn’t fully developed and had fewer strings attached. Perkins said one of the top criteria now is to be a distressed county and Whatcom County is not. FOBBL will now need to have 50 percent of the funds ready before receiving the state grant, Cox said.

“We would need to determine if we’re going to try to go for the initial big project, or are we going to try asking if we can go for a scope change request,” Cox said. “Or do we wait until the time is right to apply again for the same type of funding but with the new project we have in mind?”

In 2017, WCLS purchased the Vogt family homestead at 7968 Birch Bay Drive to replace the Birch Bay bookmobile as the population grew. The Birch Bay population has increased from 8,500 to 12,000 people since the library project began, Perkins said during the meeting. The Birch Bay library location is farther from the Blaine or Ferndale libraries than the Lynden library is from Everson, Cox said. 

WCLS is not planning on selling the Birch Bay library property right now, according to a January 17 WCLS news release. 

“I’d be interested in how these efforts coincide with other efforts that are being put forward and how do we keep support for Birch Bay while maintaining support for other projects, especially Blaine and other efforts that WCLS is moving forward,” trustee Matthew Santos said. “How much are we asking of the community and how do we keep that support?”