Library's cost still divides Cherry Hill

Two images of the Cherry Hill Public Library have jousted since the building opened in 2004: wasteful Taj Mahal vs. state-of-the-art community center.

"It's a huge boondoggle," said D.J. Whitley, who lives on the east side of town, a long drive from the facility on North Kings Highway.

"I don't know of another township of our size with 10 percent of the budget going to the library," she said.

Rosemary Leach, copresident of the Friends of the Library, who volunteers about 20 hours a week, has a different take.

The library is packed whenever she's there, Leach said: "They're getting their money's worth and then some."

Few people miss the cramped old library, with its leaking roof and antiquated circuitry.

But with state cuts in municipal aid leading to a hefty local tax increase, the old place's $21.6 million replacement - which Cherry Hill residents will be paying off for 14 more years - continues to raise hackles.

"It's not that we don't have a world-class library," said Dan Keashen, spokesman for Mayor Bernie Platt. "The cost is overwhelming, especially the debt service."

From its conception, critics have called the library an overpriced, grandiose monument to former Mayor Susan Bass Levin, who championed its construction.

Residents didn't understand the long-term costs of the construction bond, said Arthur C. Campbell, head of the Cherry Hill Regional Chamber of Commerce.

"What they have now is sticker shock," said Campbell, who, nonetheless, called the building a source of civic pride.

The township owes about $21 million on the bond by 2022, said Cherry Hill's chief financial officer, Deborah Campbell. In fiscal 2009, debt repayment is budgeted at $1.6 million and operating costs at $3.3 million. Total expenses are 8.5 percent of Cherry Hill's projected 2009 budget. In past years, the percentage has been higher.

Statewide, municipalities with their own libraries devote an average 7 percent of their budgets to operating costs alone, said Pat Tumulty, executive director of the New Jersey Library Association.

"Library services are not free," she said, "but they're the most economic way to provide a broad-based education resource to a community."

At a Cherry Hill budget workshop this month, frustrated residents questioned the library's energy efficiency, fees, and impact on the budget - though any savings would likely go to the library, not to the general fund. The town funds the library at the state-required minimum.

But inevitably, the conversation returns to the initial cost of facility.

Platt, who succeeded Levin, believes "the structure should not have been 72,000 square feet, and the financing should have been put to voters," spokesman Keashen said.

Willingboro's library, which opened in 2003, serves a community less than half the size of Cherry Hill. At 42,000 square feet, it is about 60 percent as big, but cost only a third the price. Like Cherry Hill's library, it benefited from a state grant program that assisted 68 library projects.

A professional planner held focus groups and public meetings to determine what Cherry Hill wanted from its building, said Stephen Barbell, president of the township library board from 2000 to 2006.

"You can tell by today's usage that we did the right thing," he said. "The planner said libraries of the future would be like community centers."

Last year, the building - which also houses a conference center, an exhibit area, a computer lab, a coffee shop and a gift shop - had 421,608 visitors, up from 312,680 in 2004. In a town of 71,000, the library has 65,079 cardholders.

"They may be complaining about it, but they're using it," said Gail Belfer, who lives in the town's west side. She sees a full parking lot when she drives by daily.

One day last week, mothers and grandmothers prepared for "Baby Bounce," a staff-led story time for infants, in the Susan Bass Levin Children's Library. In the basement computer lab, adults studied Microsoft Word 2007 with a volunteer instructor.

In the high-ceiling reference room, which resembles a law library, users typed on a bank of 32 computers, and a handful of people with laptops took advantage of the free WiFi. Off the lobby, senior citizens read newspapers near a gas fireplace, which is lit only occasionally because people tend to doze off.

Clerks at the Java City snack bar and shop straightened counters, awaiting customers.

"This has become a destination," library director Manuel Paredes said.

The Friends of the Library group, which Leach runs with Bryna Thaler, has 340 dues-paying members; 40 volunteers staff the gift shop. The group sponsors three book sales and a flea market yearly to raise money for extras, such as a handicapped-accessible table recently installed on the patio.

Leach contended that the library was living up to its motto: "the heart of the town."

"Because Cherry Hill has no Main Street, the library is just booked" with events, she said.

Living Beyond Breast Cancer, a nonprofit in Haverford, rents the conference center for educational programs.

"The women feel it's private for discussions, yet in an accessible local place with a friendly staff," said Elyse Caplan, the group's education director.

The most popular library-sponsored programs are for young children, said Katie Hardesty, director of public relations and special events. The 20 or so monthly events often have waiting lists.

Adults like "Lunch and a Movie," "Coffee and Conversation," and "Meet the Author," which draw 15 to 100 people each, Hardesty said.

More than 700 turned out in April to meet Jeff Kinney, author of the popular children's book Diary of a Wimpy Kid. That event was almost too successful, Paredes said. Police and firefighters were called in to keep the crowd safe and manageable.

Paredes said he believed the sour economy had boosted walk-in traffic, especially over the summer, with families seeking activities during stay-at-home vacations.

Other libraries have seen the same trend. The Camden County system - with branches in Bellmawr, Blackwood, Merchantville, Voorhees, Haddon and Winslow - reported spikes in computer sign-ups, program attendance and home-page visits in the first eight months of 2008.

But Whitley, the east-side resident, said that for older teenagers such as her 11th-grade son, "libraries are becoming almost obsolete."

Teachers require so much Internet research and specifically formatted papers that students need their own computers, she said. Plus, the library is open only from 1 to 5 p.m. on Sundays.

"I just thought it was a horrible waste of money," she said.

Belfer, on the other hand, said her children, who are 18, 16 and 11, met friends there and used it for study groups. A social worker, she has attended seminars in the conference center.

"The benefits far outweigh what the costs are," she said.

Paredes said he understood the "wow factor" when residents considered the library's budget as a whole. But as a percentage of a property-tax bill, he said, "library taxes are equivalent to the cost of a couple of [hardback] books or one dinner out."