Erie County Council approves Gannon water research center lease inside Blasco Library

Erie County Council on Tuesday passed a resolution that will allow Gannon University to build a water research and education center inside Blasco Memorial Library.

The resolution, which passed in a 5-2 vote, approved a 25-year lease agreement between the county and Gannon. The agreement greenlights the development of a 3,000-square-foot water research and education center ― to include a fishery and aquaponics lab, wet lab areas, a butterfly conservatory and a science classroom ― on the eastern wing of the library’s first floor.

Gannon will pay $22,956 annually ― or $7 per square foot per year ― to lease the space and is prohibited from breaking the lease within the first 10 years. Gannon will also pay for the center's utilities.

Voting in favor of the resolution were Republican council members Brian Shank, Ellen Schauerman and Charlie Bayle and Democrats Jim Winarski and Tom Spagel.

Voting against were Democrats Andre Horton and Terry Scutella.

Horton made a motion to table the resolution, but it was voted down in the same 5-2 manner.

Council's inability to table the measure was met with boos from a standing-room-only crowd that objected to the center’s potential effect on library services and parking, and the county’s lack of public engagement on the project.

The bulk of the audience departed the meeting before council took a final vote on the resolution. One departing attendee could be heard shouting at council, "You missed the whole point."

“I think the people have been left out of this decision,” said Jim Van Dyne, a Lawrence Park resident. “Gannon is a big private organization and we’re giving them space at a bargain-basement price in a public facility that was designed to do other things.”

County Director of Administration Doug Smith, who spoke on behalf of Erie County Executive Brenton Davis, argued the center will be a “library enhancement” and that the public should be open to changes that could benefit the long-term economic prospects of the county.

“So often in this community, we find people are afraid of things changing,” Smith said. “They must change. We are losing population. We are losing businesses. The only answer to that is change, trying to bring in something new.”

Citizens object to lack of transparency, impact on services, parking

For more than an hour, several members of the more than 50 people who attended Tuesday’s meeting objected to housing the center in the library ― not to the center itself ― during the public comment period.

Objections included the possibility that the center could impede library services, which, in turn, could hinder the library’s ability to fulfill its role as a state-designated district library center and thus lose state funding.

Other objections included the lack of parking available at the library, a problem expected to get worse as the Bayfront Parkway construction project gets underway.

Kitty Harrington, a Millcreek Township resident and a children’s librarian for 37 years, argued that library services transition over time and that the library might require that 3,000 square feet over the next 25 years.

“We need that space to adjust to what the library needs to be in the future,” she said.

Some attendees brought up the lack of transparency surrounding the resolution. While members of County Council were made aware of the proposed site in the library several weeks ago, the general public was largely kept in the dark.

The resolution was not listed on the public agenda of council’s finance committee meeting this past Thursday. Schauerman, who heads the committee, introduced the resolution as a last-minute addition to the agenda. Finance committee meetings don’t include public comment periods.

Since the measure was a resolution, it didn’t require a first and second reading. Tuesday’s meeting was the only opportunity for the public to comment on the project.

Citizens said they still had many unanswered questions, including how the lease amount and length were reached and whether other locations were considered.

“This is a big deal,” said Brian Graff, an Erie resident. “If Blasco loses 3,000 square feet, then that’s space gone, unavailable to the library for potentially 25 years. This is exactly the type of issue where there needs to be a public hearing since the library touches so many constituents all across the county in so many ways.”

County officials decry ‘misinformation,’ say library services will be unaffected

Erie County Public Library Executive Director Karen Pierce said there is “misinformation” swirling in the public, insisting “not a single program” would be eliminated in the library as a result of the new center.

She said the library has “zero chance” of losing state funding and that parking constraints will only be temporary as the nearby construction project winds down.

She added that she moved two children’s librarians from Blasco Library to branch locations to ensure all the branches had a degreed librarian on site, not as a way to free up parking for the proposed center, as some citizens suggested Tuesday.

Rebutting Harrington's point about the library needing more space in the future, Smith argued that “physical space” will likely be less important to the library in the years ahead as resources become more digitized.

He also addressed another question: How did Gannon get such a good deal on the lease amount?

“The easy reason is that they are our partners,” Smith told the crowd. “We’re not looking to make a buck off them on a yearly basis. We are here to help them grow a program that your children and your grandchildren may well get involved in and that would draw research from around the Great Lakes and from across the Great Lakes, from Canada and from Europe.”

Sarah Ewing, provost and vice president for student experience at Gannon, said having the center at the library presents a “wonderful opportunity” to provide greater access to the community and the ability to partner with librarians and arrange programming.

Center was originally set for Port Authority building

The Great Lakes Research & Education Center is part of Gannon's $24 million water quality initiative known as Project NePTWNE, pronounced "Neptune," after the Roman god of freshwater and the seas.

NePTWNE stands for Nano & Polymer Technology for Water and Neural Networks.

Originally, the university planned to build the center at the Union Fish Co. building at 116 W. Front St. at Wolverine Marina. That was the plan sold to members of County Council in March when they approved $1.5 million in American Rescue Plan funds to develop the center.

But plans changed after the Port Authority insisted the university would only get a 30-day notice if asked to vacate the building, according to Gannon spokesman Doug Oathout.

“For us, we had to pause and say, ‘If we’re going to invest a lot of money into this space, is it smart to do that knowing that at any given time, you could be handed a 30-day notice to vacate the property?’ Oathout told the Erie Times-News.

Oathout said the county approached the university about using the library. The library allows for more than 3,000 square feet as opposed to the Union Fish Company Building's 1,800 square feet.

The center will be located in an area of the library that now holds offices and some reference materials, which will be moved to the second floor, according to the administration's rationale statement to council.

The center will also share classroom space and the Idea Lab located in the library, as well as the building’s garage bay to transport materials and equipment and to store a golf cart or other small utility vehicle.

What to know about Project Neptune: Gannon University seeks to clean Lake Erie and boost economy in the process

What to know about the center: Blasco Library could soon house 3,000-square foot water research center. Here’s what we know

A.J. Rao can be reached at arao@gannett.com. Follow him on X @ETNRao.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Erie County Council OKs Gannon water research center in public library