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Joseph Alvarado
Save the Carnegie Library
I was surprised by the number of people who eagerly signed the San Rafael Library Foundation’s ballot initiative petition to ask the voters of San Rafael to approve the plans for a New Downtown Library. It makes me wonder if most of them really read it carefully.
The San Rafael Library Foundation plans to abandon the main library on Fifth Avenue, the Carnegie Library, for a combined library where the Albert Park Community Center is located, an area that was recently rezoned as part of the Downtown. The Foundation's presentation to the Library Trustees last September admits to the questionable success of their bond since their public polling results barely reached the level of statistical significance and was long, artfully confusing, and avoided posing the pivotal question directly: should there be a new library building at the Albert Complex or should the uptown, Carnegie Library be remodeled?
The proposed ballot initiative avoids stating the cumulative costs of the new proposal, similar to what doomed Measure A, last March, and ignores the question of what to do with the Carnegie. The presentation shown at the Library Foundation Board of Trustees meeting estimated the cost to be about $100 million.
Many of us in the community are fond of the Carnegie and offended by its unnecessary abandonment of it, particularly since there is an appropriate alternative. We believe the need for a new community center is overstated and counter to what the public wants.
The San Rafael Carnegie Library photographed By Joseph Alvarado
In 2011, local architect Ron Kappe's Carnegie Revival design satisfied everything required in the 2017 “Needs Assessment” for a library of the future at a fraction of the cost of the new Albert Park Complex. Kappe's handsome plan continues the same design elements as the classic sitting room and utilizes the massive concrete parking structure, engineered for automobiles in 1960 and reinforced later in the 70s, to support several floors of new library space and a roof garden with views of Mount Tam to Oakland over the beautiful, existing heritage oak tree. His plan is a more “natural” and environmentally appropriate solution.
Seven years ago, the City of San Rafael hired the architects Noll and Tam to draft a Needs Assessment. The original data for the Foundation’s "Needs Assessment" intentionally excluded local public libraries in their square footage calculations -- the Civic Center Library and Dominican Libraries both being a part of the MARINet system. And those outdated population demographics are still being used.
Remodeling the Carnegie combined with expanding the Pickleweed Branch would have brought the system up to the industry standard's square footage metric, without the need for a new library at the Albert Complex. And, of note, the initiative also doesn't fund the conversion of the Carnegie to "another public use" or state what is lost by the Carnegie and gained by the Albert Complex in terms of space.
Losing the Carnegie would add 12,500 SQ feet of excess city-owned space and it is difficult to conceive of a credible new use for the beloved Carnegie on San Rafael's Cultural Corridor. And, the Carnegie sits on high ground and its architecture cannot be replaced in the hearts of the community.
This all appears to be yet another example of powerful people “gaming the public process” to come to a pre-determined outcome. And a "Citizens Initiative" lowers the threshold for passage from 66% to 51%.
The "New Downtown Library" would be built on drained marshland that was recently rezoned as part of the last General Plan, not really downtown. We believe the public prefers the traditional uptown site on Fifth Avenue and that the Carnegie renovation is the best path forward.
The cheap white vinyl replacement windows with green glass at the Carnegie was the City's doing. The Foundation should have fixed the roof 15 years ago but now images of wet books have filled the Marin IJ's front page and front and center in the Foundation’s PR pitches for needing the new library. Their negligence being used as an excuse to abandon the Carnegie is shameful.
I hope to see you at the June 3rd San Rafael City Council Chambers at 6:00 PM. A group working to “Keep the Carnegie” will meet on the library lawn before the meeting to start organizing a true citizens’ initiative and voter education.