Facing pushback from their constituents, the Pleasant Hill City Council this week asked Contra Costa County to keep the Pleasant Hill Library open while a new, updated facility is under construction.
The county is building the new library and handing over five acres of land at no cost to the city, but when Pleasant Hill agreed to the plan it was not clear that the existing library would close before the new one is open.
Library users want to avoid a gap in services, but county Supervisor Karen Mitchoff has stated that the “highest and best use” of the property is to put it on the market before a potential economic recession adversely affects its real estate value.
That’s the heart of this conflict, which has put the City Council in a tenuous position. Some members are concerned that asking too much from the county could adversely affect its generosity.
Alternative services have been arranged, with a temporary library set up at the nearby senior center, but advocates have been firm in their insistence that the existing Pleasant Hill Library remain open during
construction.
Dozens of people have spoken up during public comment segments at meetings of the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors and City Council.
The city received 70 pages of written comment in recent months.
“Clearly the message is that the current plan to fill the gap….is not acceptable to the public,” Mayor Ken Carlson said during debate.
But all that city officials can do is relay their constituents’ requests to the county.
“No matter what we say in this resolution tonight, it’s not our decision,” Councilman Timothy Flaherty said. “These are not our employees, it is not our library.”
“Again, it is a county service,” Flaherty added. “It is not a city service.”
An alternative motion, to hold off for a few months before taking any official action, was floated – but did not garner enough votes to pass.
In the end, a resolution “to express (the council’s) desire for the current library facility to remain open during the construction of the new Pleasant Hill Community Library” passed 4-1, with Carlson casting the
dissenting vote.
The existing library was scheduled to close during fall 2019, with construction slated to begin in 2021, but that plan has been delayed by environmental review.
The county has been trying to sell the parcel where the new Pleasant Hill library will be constructed since 1985. 33 years later, they give it to the city of Pleasant Hill to build the new library. To me, that demonstrates that the county was not a motivated seller. Motivated sellers lower the price and/or offer other concessions to get rid of something. I don’t see the logic behind this new “urgency” to sell the adjacent parcel where the library is currently located.
The Mt. Diablo Unified School district purchased the parcel in the early 1950s and built Pleasant Hill High School and Oak Park Elementary there in 1953. Pleasant Hill High School was closed in 1976 due to district-wide declining attendance as the post WW2 baby boom ended. I forget if Oak Park Elementary was also closed in 1976 but it was close to that time.
In 1980 the county purchased the southern end of the parcel where Oak Park Elementary had been situated with the intention of building a courthouse. I’m not sure why the courthouse was never constructed but by 1985 the county was trying to sell the land. They tore down the Oak Park Elementary buildings in 2000. There were two main issues for why the property did not sell. 1) The county was asking for a lot of money. 2) The land is within a FEMA designated flood hazard zone. At one point the county’s flood control district wanted to buy the parcel for use as a flood plain that would hold storm surges. That plan died as the county wanted to charge its own flood control district full “market” rates for the land which the flood control could not afford. At some point in the mid 2000s the county had a contract to sell the land to a developer. When property values crashed in 2007 the developer was able to back out of the contract.
The plans for the new library do not seem to take into account that it will be situated on a flood plain. I would have preferred that the first floor be a parking garage and that the library is above it. A flooded parking garage is far easier and cheaper to recover from than a flooded library.
The parcel that the existing library is on is about 10 to 15 feet higher than where the new library will go. That makes it far more valuable as it’s well above the flood levels and any buildings on it will get amazing views of the valley across to Mt. Diablo. Selling this parcel will be easy as it’s such a desirable lot. While it’s possible the market value will go down it’s more likely it will go up, particularly if you look at the long term view such as the 33 years the county waited to dispose of the flood plain parcel.
I personally believe the county should take a very long term view. The county will continue to be here 100, 500, and more years from now. At present they are leasing office space all over the county. I believe they should build an office building on the parcel that the library is on. It would be similar to the county’s existing Department of Education office building that’s on the parcel immediately to the west of the existing library. While the up-front cost is higher they save money on the long run as they won’t need to lease as much square footage elsewhere in the county.
Office of Education is it’s own district and not a county-ran office, and the building is definitely not owned by the County.
Thank you anon. That makes sense. It’s called the Contra Costa County Office of Education (http://www.cccoe.k12.ca.us) which I had thought was a “county” thing but you are right. It seems to be it’s own district. On this web page they say “The agency functions as a link between the California Department of Education and the 18 local school districts and Community College District in Contra Costa County.” Apparently, to do that they have a budget exceeding $76 million and more than 650 employees.
Still, it makes sense put a county level office building at the site of the existing library plus now unused to under-used building rather than selling it to a private developer. The site is 4.8 acres.
5 acres of land to PH at “no cost”? Seems to me that there is plenty of cost attached with this so called “generosity” of the county.
And once again the local residents, in this case those who use the PH library, will likely get screwed. Politics at its finest.
Remember this when voting.
There’s a historical reason for the “no cost.” Apparently as part of the plan to sell the flood plain parcel there was an agreement that some or all of the money they got from the sale would be used to fund building a library for the city of Pleasant Hill. At the time the library next door was the “Central library” and the building also contained the library administration. I suspect the planned Pleasant Hill library would be just to the south of College Park High School / Valley View Middle School on city land where they have the PH police department, the PH Community Center, a corporation yard, and some other city related stuff.
Rather than selling the parcel to fund the PH library the county ended up giving the parcel to the City of PH and the city will be paying for constructing the library.
The main loss to the community is that we end up with one less library than planned as we would have had both the Central and PH branches within PH city limits. This would have made it similar to Walnut Creek which has the Ygnacio and WC branches. The Ygnacio branch used to be on county land outside the WC city limits. Walnut Creek annexed the Rancho San Miguel, Northgate, Rancho Paraiso, and beyond into the western part of Lime Ridge open space and ended up with two libraries within the city limits.
I don’t know the history of Concord that well and don’t know why they have one small community library even though it’s a much larger city than WC or PH. It seems Concord put their money into constructing police department buildings.
@WC Resident – Great historical info. Thanks!
PS – If at all possible in the future, for a branch library in PH, the sight of the Old School House at Oak Bark Blvd and PH Road may well serve the city and its residents. But that property is owned by PH Park and Rec. The building is in such disrepair and neglect, several years ago, my husband Jim (he is an architect) told me it would very likely be less expensive to tear it down and rebuild it up to code, using an as-built schematic if available, rather than dealing with the building in its current condition.
The county is only paying for a share of the environmental reporting on the parcel for the new Library. The taxpayers of Pleasant Hill are paying for the full construction cost of the new library building via a bond measure and then also paying for the park facilities via the Park and Recreation District.
Most people are not aware that the PH city government and the PH Park and Rec District are two separate entities. That’s why we have nice parks. The city can’t siphon money off to pay for the debt obligations of employee retirement packages…
You are right about the separation of the two agencies. And right that PH has benefited with excellent parks. We should all remember to keep it this way. Thanks for your comments.
unless the people can convince karen mitchoff to change her mind,
the issue is dead and the existing library will close way before
the new one is built. it will be a difficult task. she appears tone deaf
and completely out of touch with her constituents. she really should be
the supervisor leading the charge to keep the library open. unfortunately
she is not .
You are right. She is the one leading the charge to get the developers the most money soonest. That’s what her focus is. Too bad for those kids at Story Time which will now be much less accessible for at least two years.
If you weren’t at the City Council meeting Monday night during which the resolution was discussed you can watch it here. Many residents made excellent arguments for keeping the library open. The discussion among the council members opened my eyes as to who I will/will not be voting for if they run for office again.
http://pleasanthill.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=1670
Thank you WC Resident for the great information.
Vote Mitchoff out! She is looking out for the developers and not the community.
Bull . This is a County asset and Mitchoff is actually trying to do the right thing and save us some money.
Who is this mysterious developer that she is looking out for?
Here’s a clue: There isn’t one . None.
This whole thing is ridiculous. I love books. I’m well educated. I love the smell of old books. I have fond memories of libraries and being read aloud to at several county libraries.
They are defunct poorly staffed and poorly equipped. Resources are badly needed in other areas. Decreasing quantities and reliance upon printed media are making the need for collections obsolete. Libraries are a poor investment in almost every way possible.
Being more forward thinking, and investing these funds in increased online content and interpersonal educational community services would be money much better spent.
How about spending that money on schools, their libraries, computer programs and teachers? We don’t need collections of magazines, newspapers, and adult fiction. I realize these monies don’t all come from the same place. At some point we are going to need to rethink local government spending in this society. I’d start with the library.
@Steb- Whenever I read a post or hear anyone write or say that libraries are obsolete, I am pretty sure it’s because they haven’t been to one in years. Your post mentions your fond memories, so I’m guessing you fall into that category.
I don’t think you are talking about the PH Library when you say that libraries are poorly staffed. I have never had a problem getting help with resources from a librarian there, as well as getting my phone calls answered and replying to emails quickly. Plus, many of the faces I see at the library of staff have been working there for many years.
I agree that better and smarter funding of our schools is of the utmost importance. I also think thatLibraries are also important for the whole of society. People who can’t afford computers or books use the library. The library is more than just magazines, books and newspapers. You should go to the PH one (although they have already removed many books) and see how vibrant and well used it is.
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Flood zone map for the old/new library area:
https://hazards-fema.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=8b0adb51996444d4879338b5529aa9cd&extent=-122.079589280398,37.92951883101636,-122.05881825378613,37.93798090116649
(click “Legend” in the upper right)
I’m no expert but it appears the new library will mostly be in the 0.2% “Annual Chance Flood Hazard” zone with possibly some parts in the 1% zone. The old library building appears to not be in a flood zone so the risk will certainly be higher for the new library but it still seems pretty low.
Just wanted to provide some data for the flood hazard discussion.
@Couch Tomato- It’s probably why the county was so generous with the flood zone land and increased their gift from 3 acres to 5 acres. The current library is not located in a flood zone, so it would be more desirable to sell from the county’s perspective.
Maybe that’s also the reason why the land never really got much interest from developers despite it being vacant for so long.
Interesting map. Standing next to the flag pole in front of the library building it’s easy to see how much higher it is as opposed the new site. There is quite a drop off between the flag pole location down to Monicello ave. I estimated 10 ft at least. The track, especially the west end routinely fills with water in the winter. The field between the track and Oak Park blvd becomes a shallow lake that is a favorite location for people showing off their mud capable vehicles. Doesn’t appear to me like a desireable place to build anything.