BY WALTER ELLIOTT
ORANGE – Patrons, friends and staff of the Orange Public Library can only sigh and ask themselves “What If?” while watching construction developments at some of their neighboring towns’ libraries.
All OPL cardholders with current Regional Essex Borrowing Libraries can go to the next towns over to see their changes.
One can enter the East Orange Public Library’s Main Branch and see $1 million worth of recent renovations that have created an open floor plan.
The South Orange Public Library is in the midst of a $13,360,383 project to renovate their current 1968 building and their historic Connett Library building next door. Its final phase includes building a connector between the buildings.
West Orange and Maplewood are getting new libraries.
WOPL will be moved from its current 1959/79 building at 46 Mt. Pleasant Ave. uphill to the former Lincoln Technical Institute and Beatrice Foods headquarters at 10 Rooney Circle. That move will take place after a $6,196,434 repurposing of that former office building to the Essex Green’s Shopping Plaza’s north.
Maplewood officials broke ground in October on replacing all but the walls of the 1950s-era split-level Memorial or Main Library at 51 Baker St. Its “Library for the 21st Century” will increase its seating capacity by 77 percent and collection space by four percent in a building that will be 35 percent larger.
The Newark Public Library system and the Belleville and Nutley libraries are taking on smaller scaled but still visible projects.
NPL, after $3,607,474 worth of work, will re-open its former “Business Library Branch” at 34 Commerce St. downtown as “The New Charles F. Cummings NJ Information Center.” The Cummings Center has been long-lodged on the Main Branch’s first – and now third – floor.
The Belleville Public Library and Information Center has earmarked $300,000 to resurface the complex’s roof and replace its second floor windows. It is not immediately clear whether the work will be for either its original 1911 Carnegie Building or its 1929 and 1970s extensions – or all structures.
The Nutley Free Public Library is applying $568,230 to replace its obsolete HVAC system. It is not clear whether the system to be replaced includes just the 1914 Carnegie-funded building and/or its 1942 and 1990 additions – or the whole complex.
OPL cardholders may also see $1,674,034 more work in other NPL branches and/or the Glen Ridge Public Library should public library projects here and/or at 61 other public or county libraries across New Jersey fall through.
Those seven above said “Local Talk” libraries are proceeding with thanks from the 2017 New Jersey Library Construction Bond Act. The $124,619,326.71 act – passed by the State Legislature and supervised by the New Jersey State Library – had granted 20 to 50 percent of project costs among 64 libraries.
The state library had granted $20,714,177.05 worth of bonded funds to “Local Talk” awarded libraries in two waves on Nov. 20, 2020 and Jan. 12, 2022.
The East Orange, Maplewood and West Orange libraries respectively received $500,000, $8,388,250 and $3,098, 217 in 2020 for their projects.
Belleville, Newark, Nutley and South Orange respectively received $150,000, $1,764,447, $284,115.05 and $6,529,140 in 2022. Newark and Glen Ridge are on the “standby” list for $1,426,673 and $247,361.
A New Jersey State Library spokeswoman told “Local Talk” 1:30 p.m. Wednesday that the Orange Public Library had not applied for the 2020 round of awards. “OPL had submitted an application for the 2022 round,” she added, “but the reviewing committee did not grant it an award.”
The NJSL representative was unable to say why OPL did not make the January 2022 cut except that “it was a decision made by the committee.”
It is not like OPL’s 1900 Stickler Memorial and 1978 southeast wing buildings are above the need.
One or both buildings have had lead paint and asbestos removal in 2010 and to meet federal OHSA regulations 2013-14 under emergency conditions for an overall 14 months The 2007-installed patron computer terminals are being replaced.
Library Director Stephanie Flood told “Local Talk” Nov. 16 that the OPL Board of Trustees have awarded respective HVAC and 1978 flat roof replacement contracts at their Nov. 10 meeting here.
“We’re dealing with a 120-year-old building,” said Flood. “The iron pipes that came with it break and need replacement.”
It is not like those with authority – the director at the time, the trustees, Friends of OPL and certain City Hall officials – have no plans for the buildings. Two layout drawings from Somerville architect Dennis Koval, on display in the OPL rotunda, are of proposed layouts for a renovated and expanded library complex.
Those drawings, however, have been on display since Feb. 13, 2020. That was one month before OPL, like most other libraries, were closed during the global COVID-19 pandemic through April 7, 2021. The library reopened for “grab-and-go” lending material pick up and drop off April 8, 2021 before reopening to the public later that year.
The last 12 years have seen several library directors leave, resign or fired. The turbulence was also reflected in a turnover of trustees – a panel appointed by Mayor Dwayne D. Warren.
One former director had pleaded guilty to bribery concerning a $45,000 contract for an HVAC chiller unit that never arrived.
A former Orange City Business Administrator/Deputy Administrator/Mayor’s Chief of Staff and an associate were accused of applying to the state and Essex County for a children’s Saturday reading literacy program that never ran. It took Essex County two years to recover the program’s grant money.
FBI agents served warrants on OPL, along with City Hall, twice in 2016 and 18, as part of the US Department of Justice’s investigation of corruption among Orange’s institutions. That investigation, which yielded seven guilty pleas in 2020-21, continues.
It appears that a leadership vacuum, the federal investigation and the COVID-triggered public shutdown, in the eyes of “Local Talk,” had led to the missed 2020 opportunity.
Flood, who has been OPL’s latest director since Sept. 1, 2021, said that both grant applications came and went before her arrival. The former Lincoln Park director has applied for NJSL grants “where appropriate” and other grants at any opportunity.
“We were awarded an NJSL grant for seven (Apple) iPhones last year,” said Flood. “That grant has run out. Grants are competitive but I apply for them at every opportunity. As they say at the lottery, ‘You have to be in it to win it.’ “
Flood, since Sept. 1, 2021, has made OPL’s day-to-day survival her priority. She has previously pointed to the likes of restoring the rest rooms and re-cataloging the library’s fiction and Children’s Room collections to the Dewey Decimal System as among her gains.
OPL, since Nov. 5, has reopened on Saturdays and extended the Children’s Room hours on Thursday nights. The library – for adults and children – are: 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mondays-Wednesdays and Fridays. 9 a.m.-8 p.m. Thursdays. 10 a.m.- 2 p.m. Saturdays. Details may be found on OPL’s revived orangepl.org website.
