Sutton working toward new library

SUTTON — The Mat-Su Borough is seeking proposals for firms to start designing a long-awaited library to serve the Valley’s eastern reaches.

Lynne Woods, who represents Sutton on the Mat-Su Borough Assembly, said the project is humming along and is a long time in coming. The library outgrew its current home at least two years ago and is housed in a former equipment bay for the town’s fire department. That building has had two additions built onto it.

“It didn’t start out as a real up-and-up building,” she said. “And now we just have a need for a larger facility.”

She said the library serves Sutton, but also communities around it, mostly those farther east on the Glenn Highway.

“They regularly stop by and get new books on tape as they’re driving through,” she said. “I’ve heard a number of community members say, ‘Sutton always has the best books.’”

But the library is also something more than a library. Indeed, in a resolution recently passed at the assembly, it was referred to as the “Sutton Community Resource Center/Library.”

Woods said it’s something of a centralized meeting place for the community. She mentioned inoculation clinics for senior citizens, movie nights, kids’ reading programs and kids’ after-school programs.

“A lot of kids just get off the bus there,” Woods said.

But with so much going on, she said, a lot of times activities can disrupt each other. “If you’re an adult in there when kids are doing arts and crafts it’s real hard to do your work in peace and quiet,” she said.

The regulation that passed the assembly authorizes Borough Manager John Duffy to apply for a $1.65 million grant from a state fund set up in 2008 to finance the building and expansion of libraries in Alaska.

Woods said the design work the community is seeking will go to completing that application. The request for designers asks for a firm that will do 35 percent of the building and having drawings 35 percent done is a requirement of the grant application.

Another requirement is to have local contributions and buy-ins, which, Woods said, the community has been doing as well. She said they’ve probably raised more than $25,000 thus far.

That money came from the usual fund-raising activities but also from a few corporate donors. Usibelli Coal Mine Inc., which is exploring the idea of opening up mining operations in the area and held a meeting recently that packed the library and its parking lot, has donated money to the project.

“I recently held a wine tasting. We raised over $2,000 from that,” Woods said. “We’ve been plunking away.”

In addition to the state, the community has been working with foundations like the Foraker Group, the Rasmuson Foundation and the Mat-Su Health Foundation to identify funding sources. The plan calls for a new building next to the area’s historical park on borough-owned land. Asked if she thought it reasonable to expect the project would break ground in a couple of years, she said it was.

“I feel like we’re getting real close,” she said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.