The City of Litchfield Park held a four-hour long special council meeting Sept. 19 to have a community conversation on the proposal for a new library managed by the Maricopa County Library …
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The City of Litchfield Park held a four-hour long special council meeting Sept. 19 to have a community conversation on the proposal for a new library managed by the Maricopa County Library Department.
The community filled the church hall that hosted the special meeting and cut into presentations introducing the idea of the library’s movement. Of the large community turnout, more than 30 people requested to speak, and more community members interjected in presentations and council conversation. All community members who spoke were in opposition.
The proposed plans is to construct the library on Litchfield Road near the historic La Loma hilltop property. The new facility would be approximately 40% larger than the current library, offering expanded program space with updated technology and improved book handling; $5 million for the new library would be paid for by funds from Community Solutions Funding supplemented by Maricopa County.
According to Mathew Williams, Litchfield Park city manager, the existing library, built in 1979, no longer meets the needs of the public and library staff.
Jeremy Reeder, Maricopa County library director, presented issues the county library has run into in its current state, saying it is loud, has no study rooms and has limited space for holding the media collections and community event spaces.
“24,253 people identify the Litchfield Park as their home library,” Reeder said. “It’s small (but) it’s a community hub.”
The Maricopa County Library District manages library operations and staffing while Litchfield Park maintains the building and its utilities in the current space; the same would be true for the new location.
The new library would be part of a larger cultural complex, including the P.W. Litchfield Heritage Center, a hilltop park, the proposed Agua Fria Arts Academy and the new library itself. Williams said the new location would be less accessible to pedestrians compared to the current site.
Litchfield Park resident Sara Jenkins reflected on the how the community has grown over the past 40 years and her experience with the local library.
“Then and now the library has been the heart of Litchfield park,” Jenkins said. “Paul Litchfield wanted the library where it is, not in his backyard.”
Community members of all ages spoke out about preserving the accessibility to residents of the City of Litchfield Park with the new location, just over a mile away from the central Wigwam Boulevard location that functions as the central city hub.
“You need to ask yourselves, council members, what is best for our city, our children and our future,” said Shelly Smith, an after-school theater arts program director in the Litchfield Park community.
After public comments, a majority of the public audience left. Council members left to have an executive session before putting building a new library to vote.
The council unanimously approved moving forward with the intergovernmental agreement to build the new library next to the P.W. Litchfield Heritage Center.
“I was told once that there may be one vote in your tenure that will lose you 50% of your friends,” council member Ann Donahue said. “I think it’s okay sometimes to embrace change.”
Alongside building the new library, council members agreed to host public meetings to gather community input on how to keep the current library a community-used space that fits the needs of the locals after changing its use.
“You elect us to make decisions on behalf of the community. We have to look at the whole picture,” council member Lisa Brainard Watson said.
Construction for the new library is proposed to begin in the summer of 2025, with a grand opening planned for the fall of 2026.
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