Many of Carroll’s city leaders have had a change of mind about a proposed addition to the Carroll Public Library that they originally considered non-essential amenities. At Monday night’s meeting, the board discussed adding a family restroom and mother’s room to the footprint of the new library layout. City Manager, Mike Pogge-Weaver, explained that the rooms would not be taking up public space in the library, but would instead be located in a central section that had originally been earmarked as administrative. The costs, he says are two-pronged.
In response to requests from Carroll residents, family restrooms were added at the Rec Center, and this was a point that many of the council members went back to as they talked through the prospect of adding these items to the construction contracts. Clay Haley says he was against this at first, but as he thought about it he realized it was more common than he had originally believed. He can certainly understand a parent getting nervous sending a young child into a bathroom on their own. And not to make light of it, but there are other issues with bringing children into a traditional restroom.
Mayor, Dr. Eric Jensen, says his gut reaction was to do the basic thing and get the pipes in place. But if they wait another year or two, construction costs will just go up again. Carolyn Siemann pointed out that the Rec Center addition took years to get done, it was costly to retrofit them into the space and created a disruption to their services. She adds these have become something that people just expect. During a meeting with the Library Board of Trustees on this project, Pogge-Weaver stressed the importance of staying under budget overall. The proposal will pull the money from the contingency fund, which has a balance of $333,001. Pogge-Weaver says that all expectations are that they would not exceed the balance in this fund. However, he cautioned that if other items did go over budget, the council would be faced with making cuts at a later date. LaVern Dirkx says he felt more comfortable knowing there was a plan in place to address any overages. In order to avoid construction delays, city staff approved the rough-ins for both rooms. On Monday, the council approved the construction on a unanimous vote.
