Friday, September 13, 2002
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Friday, September 13, 2002 |
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State grant may be available for expanding PTC library facility By JOHN
MUNFORD A bid to get a $1.7 million state grant to expand Peachtree City's library just might be revived after all. "We now have a chance at a state grant," Chris Clark, chairman of the Peachtree City Library Commission, told the city council last week. The catch is, to qualify, the city will have to chip in $728,000 of the cost to add an extra 10,000 square feet "to an already crowded library," Clark said. "Of all the years for the grant to fall in," lamented Mayor Steve Brown. "It's a difficult opportunity to refuse," said councilman Dan Tennant. Finance Director Paul Salvatore said council would have to spend its share of the funds by Oct. 1, 2004, to qualify for the grant. The bigger picture, however, is that it will cost upwards of $200,000 a year in operating expenses to expand the library, Salvatore added. Clark urged the council to reconsider replacing the "seed money" it had budgeted this year for the library's expansion grant. The $137,063 was one of many cuts in the city's 2002-03 budget as council slashed $1.8 million in projects to stave off what could have been a significant property tax increase.
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