Diamond Bar to See New City Hall, Library Within a Year

A new city hall and library are scheduled to come to Diamond Bar within the year after a city council vote Tuesday night.

The council cast a unanimous vote to approve a $6 million allocation for construction of the combined city hall and library building and approved a 40-year lease agreement with the County of Los Angeles to move the into the first floor of that building.

Council member Jack Tanaka, however, voted against the lease agreement package with the County to move the library to a new, expanded location.

Tanaka said he had no objection to expanding services and space of the library, but took issue with the $1 annual lease that he said was a lost opportunity to collect market-value rent on the property that could make up for the $9.9 million spent to buy the building.

"If leased at market rates, funds generated could refund $10 million back to general fund and could be used to provide services and programs for all of the residents," Tanaka said.

Assistant City Manager David Doyle said the lease agreement was set at $1 and the city agreed to take on building maintenance and utilities costs in order to keep the library's operating budget nearly the same while expanding the square footage of the library twofold.

Doyle said the library typically operates on $1.5 million raised from Diamond Bar taxpayers. Council member Carol Herrera said a previous attempt to construct a new library next to the Diamond Bar Center using tax dollars was turned down with 71 percent of voters turning down higher taxes to build a new facility.

"(Residents) do want a new library, but they wanted us the city to find some other way to provide that," Herrera said.

Mayor Steve Tye, Mayor Pro Tem Ling-Ling Chang, and Council Member Carol Herrera voted in favor of the agreement and Council Member Ron Everett was absent Tuesday.

The city purchased the building with $9.9 million in general fund reserves and will spend another $6 million to prepare the city hall and library building. The city plans to save $400,000 per year at the new building compared with leasing space at the and expects to have $17 million remaining in reserves at the end of the 2011-2012 fiscal year.

While the city is spending millions on construction at the new building, Tanaka said he also took issue with the lease agreement for another reason — the use of the building's first floor, which will have a meeting room but no city council chambers.

"I feel there is adequate meeting space (in the new building) that can serve several purposes," Tanaka said. "Large agenda items can be scheduled in AQMD auditorium."

Tanaka said meetings of the city's planning commission, traffic and transportation commission, and parks and recreation commission — all of which are not televised — will likely be held in the new building.

Tanaka said that in the nearly 25 other city halls he has surveyed, each one had council chambers in the building. But Mayor Steve Tye said Diamond Bar is in a unique situation.

"I would wonder of the 25 communities that you surveyed how many are within 100 yards a facility like (the AQMD auditorium) to hold their meetings in at $24,000 per year," Tye said.

The AQMD auditorium, where the city council currently meets, has full theater seating and an expansive wooden dais, but Mayor Steve Tye said the auditorium's audio/visual equipment is the primary reason to pay rent for the space, to the tune of $2,000 a month.

Tye said the city is not required to broadcast city meetings, but that it could continue its regular broadcast at AQMD rather than paying an estimated $1.5 million to put in comparable equipment at the new facility.

"That would be a gross misuse of funds," Tye said. "Why would you do that just to put (meetings) on cable twice a month?"

Tye said it would take 40 years to make up the initial investment in council chambers at the new city hall. Tanaka said that if the city is considering long-term planning that a 40-year investment in city council chambers would be a sound one.

Construction on the new city hall is expected to start in the next few weeks and the city offices are scheduled to transfer to the new facility by January of 2012.

The new library is expected to be completed about a year from now, Doyle said.

More in this story: 

• Knabe Announces $5 Million to Move Library Plans Forward
• New Library Design Takes Shape, Life-Sized Horse Lamp Planned
• County Approves Design Costs for New Library