Advertisement Members of the Holmen Village Board’s Finance and Personnel Committee Tuesday tabled a proposed resolution that called for the village to match “dollar for dollar” fundraising, up to $2 million for a new area library.
“We are all for this,” Trustee Rich Anderson said of the library project. The problem is with wording suggesting the project also include the Holmen Area Historical Society, the Holmen Area Foundation, Holmen Civic and Commerce Association and others.
The overall plan is to purchase the St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church building and convert it to library. Holmen’s present library is bursting at its seams and said to be too small for a community Holmen’s size. The project has bounced around for about a year, being resurrected last month by Trustee Ryan Olson.
Olson suggested the village promise up to $1.3 million toward acquiring the church as well as promising to pay an additional $700,000 toward renovating and preparing the church building for use as a library. In addition, he suggested the old library building be sold to the Holmen Area Partnership for Youth as a potential youth center.
For the past two years residents, concerned about the cramped library quarters in an old grocery store, have sought a new facility. It appeared St. Elizabeth’s Church would be the ideal space.
Late last year the village board said it would pay up to $2 million for St. Elizabeth’s but an appraisal said the church building was worth only $1.3 million, a price too low for the parish to accept.
During September’s discussions the notion of a community campus arose. The idea was to lump together various groups so they could cooperate in fundraising as well as to share space at the “campus.”
Lumping the groups into the library fundraiser left the Friends of the Library and HAPY both saying it would ruin their capital campaigns.
“The community does not have the aggregate capital for two campaigns,” HAPY fundraising chair Mark Huesmann said. “This will split the community and both drives will fail.”
Friends of the Library President Roxanne Reynolds agreed. “This will really stifle the (library’s) capital campaign by grouping us,” she said.
The resolution placed before trustees specifically dropped the idea of converting the old library into youth center space. HAPY hoped to get the existing space once the library moved to the St. Elizabeth church facility. The resolution before trustees stated the “sale of the existing library…will not be considered” at this time.
“The library is incredibly important and we would be missing an opportunity to wrap in partners,” Trustee Mark Seitz said.
After about 45 minutes of discussion, Seitz moved to table the resolution so it can be reworked to be more acceptable. “We have a lot more work to do on this,” he said.
Electric vehicles
A proposed ordinance that would allow neighborhood electrical vehicles in Holmen is set for discussion during the village board’s November meeting cycle.
NEVs are small electric vehicles — many are similar to golf carts upgraded to DOT standards — that could be used on village streets. They are allowed a top speed of 25 mph and are not permitted on state highways.
The ordinance has been held in committee until receiving a blessing from the La Crosse County highway commissioner.
Trail cleanup
Two more groups have signed on to the Adopt-a-Trail program for the Halfway Creek Trail: the Holmen Area Rotary Club for mile 3 and Ventures Charter School for mile 2.5.
