BonnerSprings.com

Besides books, there's at least one essential non-human feature for a library: a means of storing and displaying books.

At its Monday night meeting, the Bonner Springs City Council approved a bid for shelving for the city's new library. The bids submitted by two companies for the shelving came in higher than the library's architects had estimated, said Kim Beets, director of the Bonner Springs Library. That's because of the increase in steel and fuel prices, she said.

The new library "was designed around the shelving," said Beets, so that all shelves could be seen from the central desk.

With that in mind, Beets decided to call the lowest bidder of the two that responded, Scott Rice Office Works, and managed to negotiate a $4,900 price reduction, by re-using all of the current library's steel shelving and eliminating some of the new library's planned online catalog stations and decorative tops for the children's shelves. The cost was brought down to $142,569.

The bid includes the design and installation of all new shelving, end panels, online catalog stations, delivery and installation of existing library shelves, and the manufacture and installation of custom shelving and kiosks.

The total furniture and equipment budget for the new library is $225,000, which includes money for computers and interior signs. The furniture package selected by the library board and staff was estimated at $148,982, Beets' report said, a reduction of $94,556 from the original package selected, making for a combined shelving and furniture cost of $291,552.

To make up for the $66,552 difference between that cost and the budgeted amount, Beets said, "the library board and I got creative and worked out a solution."

That includes doing away with a planned $20,000 book-security system and $50,000 in planned purchases for the new library collection on opening day.

Book-security systems often go unused, Beets' report said, because of their error rate, and the systems also imply a mistrust of patrons.

The new collection for the library's opening day, Beets wrote in her report, is the "most flexible part" of the new library's budget, because additional collections can be added as funds become available.

Beets also recommended looking at the net interest earnings of $185,000 from the $3.5 million bond issue for the new library as a source for funding the opening-day collection.

In other action the council on Monday night:

¢ Approved payment of claims for city operations for $543,452.

¢ Approved payment of Public Housing Authority claims for $2,371.

¢ Approved a construction engineering inspection services contract with Wilson and Company for a contract for a sludge-conditioning project at the wastewater treatment facility for an amount not to exceed $12,000.

¢ Approved a lease-rental agreement for a new postage meter for $176 per month, replacing the old meter that cost $181 per month.

¢ Approved the appointment of Bud Jones to the Drug and Alcohol Commission, filling a vacancy that ended in March. Jones' term will end in March 2011.

¢ Approved a certification of compliance and annual plan for the Public Housing Authority.

¢ Approved the awarding of a bid to Aero-Mod Inc. for a new belt filter press - which is used to dewater sludge - for the wastewater treatment facility for $172,500. The Aero-Mod bid was more than $100,000 less than the next lowest bid.

¢ Approved an ordinance adopting the 2008 edition of the League of Kansas Municipalities Standard Traffic Ordinance.

¢ Agreed to a date of Oct. 30, for a joint meeting with the Unified Government of Wyandotte County/Kansas City, Kan., Board of Commissioners and an Oct. 23, date for a workshop of the Wolf Creek sewer.

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