2022 Boulder Public Library Proposal

 

Summary:

Boulder City Staff was asked to research options for stable funding for the public library system.  They have submitted a proposal for the formation of a Boulder Public Library District which would be able to collect property taxes to fund the current City of Boulder library system and expand it to support people outside the city limits.

For complete details, please visit:

boulderlibrary.org/library-district
www.boulderlibrarychampions.com

History:

Work on the library district started many years ago.   This chronology only includes events starting this year as the proposal started moving closer to endorsement by Boulder City and Boulder County.

2022-03-08:

  • Informational meeting on the proposed Boulder Public Library District and details of how it *might* formed.
    • David Farnan director of the Boulder Public Library
    • Chris Barge Library Foundation CEO
  • Left Hand Valley Courier
    A Library In Gunbarrel or Niwot?

2022-03-10:

2022-03-31:

2022-04-05:

2022-04-06:

2022-04-07:

  • Boulder County Commissioner regular meeting
    Agenda item 3.a: Resolution 2022-30 –Forming Boulder Public Library District

    • Boulder County Commissioners tabled discussion with no specific resumption date.
    • Did not have enough and some conflicting information about community desires
    • Uncomfortable excluding Niwot but not other unincorporated areas
    • Want to know if Longmont Public Library District would include Niwot
    • Want City of Boulder to consider maintaining their current level of  funding and create the district with 1 mill property tax instead of 3.8

2022-04-25:

  • Update from the NCA on information collected from several different sources:
      • Last week the Boulder City Council announced that they saw “no path forward to reconcile with the Boulder County Commissioners on a library resolution.”
      • The Boulder County Commissioners are expected to formalize the same at their regular meeting on 4/26/2022
      • Boulder Library Champions are proceeding with petitioning the measure onto the fall ballot which they held off on doing at the request of Boulder City while the joint city/county resolution was worked on.
      • Because of upcoming deadlines to petition the library district onto the fall ballot, the Boulder Library Champions had to finalize the language and boundary map and decided to exclude the bulk of Niwot. As of today, they have not yet updated their proposed boundary map on their website (www.boulderlibrarychampions.org) but the current map is below.

        NCA areas (NCA service area map):

        • Areas 1, 2, 3, 4, & 8 are all outside
        • Area 5: North of Monarch is outside and south of Monarch is inside
        • Area 6: inside
        • Area 7: East of N. 73rd is outside and West of N. 73rd is inside
      •