Clay’s new public library is under budget, ahead of schedule

Photo courtesy of the Trussville Tribune.

Immediately following a library board meeting Tuesday, City Manager Ronnie Dixon told the Clay City Council that the construction of the new Clay Public Library remains under budget and ahead of schedule, the Trussville Tribune reports. 

“We are still five days ahead of schedule and we’re about $20,000 to $25,000 under budget on the library,” Dixon said. “Nothing has changed in the last few weeks, so we still plan to finish on [May] 18.”

According to Dixon, the week of May 18 will be spent setting up the furniture in the new building.

“The week of the 25th, the existing library will close and we will move all of the media using Public Works,” he said. “We will be moving books and all the materials out of the old library and into the new library.”

The grand opening and ribbon cutting ceremony will be held on June 2 at 2 p.m., opening up to the Summer Reading program kickoff from 2-4 p.m. Clay’s annual fishing rodeo will also be that morning from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.

During the regular council meeting, Mayor Charles Webster addressed a question concerning what will become of the historic Jayford Ware House that currently houses the library.

“We’re sort of kicking some things around, but we haven’t really made any plans,” he said. “There’s no plans to tear it down, so we can go ahead and get that out in the open.”

Webster said that there are some structural issues with the old building, which would have cost the city thousands of dollars to repair.

“That’s why we built the new library, because we’d have to spend several thousands of dollars [to fix the issues],” he said. “But we’re kicking around some ideas and hopefully when we get something to bring up, we’ll start talking about it and see what we can do. First we’re going to get moved out and get the new one started and have us a nice new library, so I’m excited about that.”

In city business, following a public hearing, the council unanimously passed a motion to approve Zoning case Z-2018-02, allowing the rezoning of two parcels of land on Old Springville Road from Residential Medium Density to Agricultural.

Dixon explained that the property, which is approximately five acres, was put through a “family split” when the owner gifted a parcel of the land to his son, leaving each parcel with more than two acres.

“The way we look at it as staff, and the way Planning and Zoning looked at that, that is an upgrade in zoning, from Residential Medium to Agriculture, because of the lesser number of rooftops and the greater pervious surface so that we would have a lesser chance of additional runoff,” Dixon said.

The council also passed two public nuisance resolutions. Resolution 2018-06 declared weeds a public nuisance at 5530 and 5542 Spanish Tr and 5870 Brenda Dr.

“It’s just that time of year,” Dixon said. “This is the initial first step in allowing us to go and cut the property and place a lien against it for the cost.”

Resolution 2018-07 declared personal property to be a nuisance at 7432 Hines Lane.

“There are several old cars and cars with expired licenses,” Dixon said. “The deputies have checked, the tenants have been notified, so once again, this is the first step in cleaning up that property, which in this case will be to have a towing company remove the property.”

The next Clay City Council meeting will be Tuesday, May 8, at 6:30 p.m. at City Hall, with the pre-council workshop beginning at 6 p.m.