FOPRL – The state of the new library

By Judy Ross

By the time you are reading this, the future of our new library will mostly likely be a fact, but as I write, we are still negotiating a final Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Whatcom County Library System (WCLS) and with the Point Roberts Parks and Recreation District. This is the third version of the MOU over the past six years: each version talks about what each of the three parties agrees to do to further the new library project.

The most important aspect of the new MOU is that WCLS is offering to provide funds that will complete the final funding, taking into account what FOPRL has already raised. There are further details as to the obligation of the parks district to reimburse WCLS for its contribution if it at some point in time withdraws its offer of the use of the renovated Julius fire hall as a library space.

The parks district will also be responsible for construction project management. FOPRL will have done the fundraising that it was committed to. I hope it will all be that easy.

For the moment, I can only tell you all where we are, and remind you that we wouldn’t be here if so many of you, your friends, your relatives and friends who don’t even live here, and our local businesses had not so generously donated both time and money to this project over the years. I have never doubted that it would not happen and that has largely been because so many of you have offered so much encouragement over the years. It will have taken a community to build this library, and we have surely demonstrated that we are a community that believes in the need for a good library.

WCLS has done everything they possibly could do to bring this project to fruition, largely because they believe in libraries, of course, but also because they wanted to support all that the community had done to make it happen. And the parks district has generously donated its building to the project as well.

That is where we are.