Pleasant Grove pursues bond to fund library, fire station, rec center

PLEASANT GROVE — Pleasant Grove leaders plan to ask property owners in the city for approval to tack on extra taxes to pay for a new library, fire station and community recreation center.

An estimated combined cost could reach $17 million — but the annual amount that taxpayers would have to pay each year to cover incurred debt is not known.

More information will be available after the completion of a financial analysis.

But the campaign to get voter approval of a proposed bond issuance for the three projects has already started. "We need all three," said City Councilman Mike Daniels, chairman of a bond-election committee established by the council in March to look at needs and feasible options.

So how big will each building be? Where will they be built? What will be included?

Nothing has yet been decided.

Daniels makes it clear that public input will define what is built and where. Public meetings to dispense information and gather input will be scheduled starting in January.

"Nothing will be finalized without the public's input," Daniels said.

The Pleasant Grove City Library is housed in 6,000 square feet in a building at 30 E. Center that was not supposed to function as a library, according to Library Board Chairwoman Julie Bellon. The building is not big enough or accessible to the handicapped.

The proposed 45,000 square foot, $5 million to $6 million library would have space for many more books, separate children's, youth and adult sections, banks of computers, historic displays and public meetings. It would also be built to earthquake safety standards.

"I would hate to have to start cutting any programs," Bellon said. "But right now we have 45 percent of our collection checked out at a time when the national average is 2 percent to 3 percent. We had 1,100 children in our summer reading program. We need a new library for so many reasons."

The Pleasant Grove Fire Station, 100 E. 100 South, is the only fire station for the community of 27,000.

A new $2 million station would be built to seismic standards, have training and meeting rooms, additional living and sleeping quarters, adequate parking, more bay space for firetrucks and administrative offices.

"We're not really sure where we'll put the new building — in land owned by the city in another area or in the same area — but that building needs to come down, regardless," Daniels said.