This article originally appeared in the WestView on February 23, 2005. It is reproduced here with permission.

Council Comments by Eric Crafton

As many of you know, Councilmen Tygard, Whitson and I started a community-wide letter writing campaign a couple of weeks ago to let Mayor Purcell and the other members of the Metro Council know of the tremendous challenges we as a community are facing with Bellevue’s undersized, inadequate library. Many of the other Council members are reluctant to support our library expansion because they somehow feel it might keep them from getting a project done for their district. Below is an open letter that I sent to every Council member last week to address this issue:

Dear Members of the Metro Council:

The question has been asked, “Where will we get the money to fund a Bellevue Library without a property tax increase?” First, let me state that Bellevue residents already paid for a new library once during my first term 1995-1999. A small tax increase was approved for education and libraries. We were promised a library and did not get it. But putting that aside, consider the following:

Why don’t we sell the old Green Hills Library property, which is currently being used to store old library records etc. - so much for highest and best use. That would raise approximately $2.5 million for starters. One could also cut $250,000 from the $3 million - $4 million a year we spend on numerous non-profits. This would raise another approximate $2 million from a bond issue. That brings my total to $4.5 million.

Also, after reading some of the comments Council Members sent to me or to the people requesting an adequate library facility for Bellevue, a very important fact seems to have been forgotten. You don’t necessarily have to have a property tax increase to do capital projects! How is this possible, you ask? We just passed an $80 million capital improvements package last budget, a budget that didn’t have a tax increase. How did we do it? We pay off or retire about $30 million to $50 million worth of bonds every year, freeing up that amount of bonding capacity. So, I would take $3 million from that pool of unused bonding capacity. If you want to continue funding the non-profits at the same level rather than reducing funding by the $250,000 I suggested were possible, then I would take $5 million from the bonding capacity. Either way, that brings my total up to $7.5 million, which gives us the $7 million needed for the library as stated by Donna Nicely, Director of Libraries, and $500,000 for possible increased staffing needs and operational costs; the increase should be minimal, since we would be simply moving an existing staff to a new location. As an aside, Whitson, Tygard and I would gladly give up our $5 million share of the $100 million sidewalk bond issue, where our districts aren’t scheduled to get any sidewalks until 2008-2009, to also help pay for the library and/or other projects like storm water needed in our districts. This gives us $12.5 million with which to work.

I have just paid for a new regional library that has been at the top of Nashville’s Library’s capital improvements plan for a very long time, without a tax increase. This Council’s mentality seems to be, “You can’t have your district’s project, because I have a project in my district that I want done.” This Council approves budgets. This Council could set the agenda for spending in our districts, if it had the political will to do so. Every Council member should be able to have projects done in his or her district. If we are not getting the projects done in our districts that we want, it is our own fault. We control the money! Let’s act like we do. Why don’t we come together during this year’s budget process and help each other get various projects in our districts funded instead perpetuating a “we vs.. they mindset.” I would be glad to help other Council members figure out how to fund their projects without tax increases. Let’s come up with a list of projects that everyone wants done and see how much it would cost. Please consider the Bellevue Library project on its own merits with the funded sources I have provided. Don’t tie it to other projects.

Respectfully,

Councilman Eric Crafton