The Gaynor Family Regional Library will soon move into space vacated by Red River Planning District (RRPD) in 2022 and offer expanded programming and collection space.
It’s a move that makes perfect sense and it benefits the citizens of Selkirk, St. Andrews, St. Clements, and Dunnottar that their library will be able to grow into its expanded footprint and offer more services.
Improved services to citizens
On March 4th, the three ownership municipalities – Selkirk, St. Andrews and St. Clements – all signed agreements that facilitated the expansion following the departure of RRPD and addressing legal and financial issues that have been unresolved since the building’s completion in 2014.
Selkirk council has worked to ensure that if the space ever became available, it would be used by the library to provide improved services for citizens.
“The last four City of Selkirk councils have worked hard to protect the interests of citizens and secure this asset and make sure that it was available for the library,”
Selkirk CAO, Duane Nicol
“The last four City of Selkirk councils have worked hard to protect the interests of citizens and secure this asset and make sure that it was available for the library,” says Selkirk CAO Duane Nicol.
“It was always part of the original vision and now, thanks to a steady commitment to that vision, it’s become a reality and citizens of the three ownership municipalities and Dunnottar will be the beneficiaries.”
In 2012, a provincial grant combined with a deadline-driven million-dollar donation from Jim and Betty Ann Gaynor were motivating forces behind the long-held dream of a new library becoming a reality. Formerly located on Main Street in the building now occupied by the Lord Selkirk Education Centre, the library had simply outgrown the space.
The library build committee, consisting of members from the three ownership municipalities and the library were joined by the RRPD who were looking for new office space but couldn’t afford its own building.
Lack of final agreement, cause for dispute
A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was drafted in 2012 to reflect the ownership and funding arrangement for the new library and indicated that a separate agreement would be required to manage the relationship between the library and the RRPD.
The 2012 MOU left room for disagreement amongst the involved parties and the building committee and the RRPD never did enter into a final written agreement before the building was constructed and the two organizations moved in.
In the summer of 2014, months after the new building became occupied, the development of proper lease agreements began. A dispute arose between RRPD and the ownership group as to the status of the RRPD’s tenure within the building, with the RRPD claiming ownership.
City worked tirelessly to retain the space for its intended use – library space
The City of Selkirk acting as trustee for the ownership group, took a strong stand against this claim and fought hard to hold the planning district to its original commitment as a lease holder, not an owner.
Nicol said the city spent months of time reviewing thousands of pages of emails, building committee meeting minutes, RRPD board meeting minutes, agreements, and other documents and developed a detailed summary of the evolution of the building and the ownership structure.
“In addition to that work, the city engaged legal counsel to navigate this dispute and to eventually draft the lease agreements to which all parties eventually agreed,” said Nicol
In 2019, two lease agreements, one with the library for their portion and the other with the RRPD for their portion, were signed.
This was all done with the city using its own administrative staff and money, with no reimbursement at the time from the other ownership partners.
The City of Selkirk spent tens of thousands of dollars to accomplish this, again, to ensure the space would eventually come back to the library, which was the original vision of the library building committee. The city is identified as the legal owner of the property because it’s located in Selkirk, which means property and school taxes don’t have to be paid because it’s a city-owned building.
City takes ownership of the lease after RRPD departure
In 2021, the City of Selkirk received permission from the province to leave the RRPD subject to a separation agreement mutually agreed to by RRPD and the City. The RRPD wanted out of its lease and made the city buying them out of the lease by paying the remainder of their mortgage a requirement of the separation agreement.
Nicol said an independent market value analysis of the value of the long-term pre-paid lease put it at more than $3 million. Buying out the lease would cost just over $1 million.
“It made good financial sense for us to take ownership of the lease,” Nicol said.
“By securing the lease, the city could either recover all of the expenses it had incurred on-behalf of the ownership group since 2014 by subletting the property, or it could make the space available to the library with the costs being shared by the ownership group, which is thankfully where we ended up,”
Selkirk CAO, Duane Nicol
The city once again covered the legal expenses to transfer ownership of the lease and pay off the mortgage. The city had also been paying operating costs of the space since RRPD left in 2022.
“By securing the lease, the city could either recover all of the expenses it had incurred on-behalf of the ownership group since 2014 by subletting the property, or it could make the space available to the library with the costs being shared by the ownership group, which is thankfully where we ended up,” Nicol said.
The new co-ownership agreement has all three owning municipalities sharing equally in the legal, operating, and lease purchase costs incurred from 2014 to the end of 2024, thus making the space available for library expansion. All together this represents a shared investment of over $1.2 million dollars by the three municipalities into the library expansion project. The new agreements clearly spell out the responsibility
and obligations of all parties going forward, reducing the potential for future disagreements.
A new era of partnership
“These new agreements replace all the previous MOUs, lease agreements and understandings. They truly reflect a new era of partnership and collaboration between the parties. We were all committed to resetting this situation and putting the Gaynor Family Regional Library in the best possible position to succeed going forward,” Nicol said.
Expanding the library aligns with Selkirk’s Strategic Plan, which calls for the city to build on its status as a regional service centre and to provide the best possible recreation opportunities.
