14-05-2025
Ector County Library is turning a new page
ODESSA, Texas (KMID/KPEJ)- During Tuesday's Commissioners Court meeting, leaders from the Ector County Library Foundation talked about funding and making sure they would still be getting the land that was promised to them.
After some debate, county leaders confirmed that the new Library will be built where the Health Department currently sits.
'They made it very clear that it will be built at the site of the Health Department,' President of the Ector County Library Tim Ogilvy said. 'That was a concern of ours, too, because of the different rumors and stories.'
Those rumors stemmed from the continued debate over the future location of a new court house.
Not only was the location a concern for the library committee but also the ten million dollars that was in a reserved account for the library. The Library Foundation want the moved to its own account.
'Motion by Commissioner Simmons and a second by Mr. Hall to move the ten million dollars that they have previously committed as their first payment to the new library into the foundations account with a caveat that we can spend up to two and a half million,' Ogilvy said. 'Then any other fund after that needs to be matched by community donations.'
The Ector County Library says that moving the money is all in an effort to be transparent with investors.
'Without the court behind us, our funders are like that's half the money,' Ogilvy said. 'So, if they are going to provide 50 percent of the funding and the community is going to provide 50 percent of the funding. We all have to be on the same page.'
Securing land and funding is a huge step for committee members like Ogilvy, who said he wants a new library because the current one is run down, smells, and is not ADA compliant. Additionally, he says this new library will bring in new services to the community.
'Besides just books, they can have, ESL. We need ESL training, we will have the ability to do a lot of that,' Ogilvy said. 'We talked a lot to the new Hispanic Culture Center, and as Judge Fawcett brought up this morning, with 70 percent of the adults can't read and write, literacy is a huge part of the library as well as just community fun.'
The new library will be maintained by the County.
'This is the Ector County library, which is being funded in a private-public partnership with these private funds,' Judge Dustin Fawcett said. 'Ultimately, we will be the ones running this facility. It will be maintained by the county.'
The estimated cost of the new library is just above 30 million. That includes the cost of all furnishing and technology. The new library will also be completely funded through the public and private partnerships. There will be no cost to taxpayers.
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