Opinion: The Jones Library Question No One Asks
Laying the cornerstone of the Jones Library, October 19, 1927. (L-R) Rev.John J. O' Malley, St Bridgid Catholic Church; George Cutler, Jones Library Treasurer; Arthur S. Pease, President of Amherst College; Roscoe W. Thatcher, President, Massachusetts Agricultural College; Allen H. Cox, architect; John M. Tyler, Jones Library Trustee. Photo: amherstma.gov (Jones Library Historic Structure Report)
There is one question that seems to have been swept under the rug amidst the clamor surrounding the divisive Jones Library demolition-renovation-expansion project. Namely, to what extent should Amherst property tax revenues be directed toward The Jones Library, Inc.?
In the early 1920s, Amherst’s community library was very much a private affair. The Jones Library was incorporated in 1919 after Samuel Minot Jones left $661,747.08 in his will to the Town of Amherst to create a “free public library.” The Board of Trustees hired architect Allen H. Cox to design a building after a comfortable Connecticut Valley home symbolizing in the words of Trustee John Tyler, “Mother Amherst welcoming her children to the hearth.”
The attractive downtown landmark was completed in 1928 and thrived for the next 25 years absent any demand on town funds. In 1954, reports Frank Prentice Rand in The Jones Library of Amherst, 1919-1969, Town Meeting was persuaded to contribute a modest annual appropriation of $6500 toward library operations. This arrangement continued until 1967 when a building project launched to recoup space from the library’s underutilized auditorium ran $45,000 over budget. The trustees determined that withdrawing this amount from their endowment would reduce annual draws by $9000, so the Town agreed to bump up its annual contribution to $11,500.
Historian Rand, who served as a library trustee for thirteen years, decried this shifting of financial responsibility from private donors to the local taxpayers. “Freedom from fees, the kind the founder had in mind,” he wrote, “already no longer exists except as the book borrower happens to be exempt from local taxation.”
One wonders what Rand would make of the Jones Library’s thirst for public funds today. In fiscal year 2025 the Town funneled $2.3 million into library operations. According to Massachusetts Department of Revenue statistics, Amherst ranks #6 in the state for percentage of its general fund that it devotes to library costs.
And while the Amherst Regional School District struggles to find ways to avoid cutting 35 educators in FY 26 due to budget constraints, the Jones Library Board of Trustees has unapologetically voted to give Library Director Sharon Sharry an 11% raise, making her more highly paid than all but 13 directors in Massachusetts according to the latest Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners (MBLC) salary statistics. When students who have their own academic libraries are excluded, Amherst’s estimated library population of 17,000 is 119th in the state.
However, this expenditure of property tax revenues pales in comparison to what the trustees seek for their controversial demolition-renovation-expansion project. Yielding to aggressive lobbying by the library’s Capital Campaign and its closely aligned political action committee Amherst Forward, the Amherst Town Council has committed $15.8 million to fund the building project which is now $10 million over original cost projections, and its design has seen close to $5 million worth of design features eliminated to reduce costs.
When the estimated $9 million in interest payments is added to the town’s financial commitment, the price tag to taxpayers comes to about $25 million. Averaged over Amherst’s roughly 10,000 households, this represents an outlay of $2500 per household to pay for the venture. All this for a project that critics argue is unnecessary based on the library’s current size and attendance statistics, that destroys the building’s historic character, and for which the public who are footing the bill were never invited to set the scope of the Trustees’ ambitious designs.
So much for a free public library.
Jeff Lee is a career computer programmer and regular observer of local government. He has lived in Amherst since 1994 and in the Pioneer Valley since 1973 when he began grad work in mathematics at UMass. He formerly served on the Amherst Redevelopment Authority and as a member of Town Meeting. He is chair of the Amherst Historic Preservation Coalition. He is a frequent contributor to the Amherst Indy.
As with my confusion and concern that the upcoming presidential election could be such a close race, I cannot fathom how the above clearly laid out facts and figures would not convince everyone, but those who would never be convinced by reality, to demand that the current Jones Library Plan be shelved. Thank you, Jeff.
Excellent, Jeff! This Jones Library financial history gives a new point of view for considering Amherst’s municipal priorities. That the public schools, which children are obligated to attend, are struggling so desperately for funding, makes that first Town Council payment for the Jones Library look like the camel’s nose under the tent. Now the camel is running away with the tent.
Another cost I wonder about is the demolition/expansion Project’s construction cost per square foot. As of March 2024, the high end of the cost range per square foot in the Eastern U.S., to construct a commercial mid-rise building, was $719. Add 2-4% since March for inflation. https://www.solutionsgc.com/cost-of-commercial-construction-per-square-foot-in-the-us/
But this demolition/expansion Project will add 12,000 SF to the Jones Library at a cost of $3,844.98. per additional SF. That’s more than 5 times as much. Really?
Someone who knows construction will have to enlighten me: Would $3,844.98. per additional SF be considered wild overspending? And, can’t Amherst find an additional 12,000 SF more economically?
Showing the work:
63,000: Total SF of Jones Library at end of Project
-51,000: Total SF in Jones Library at present, “if all spaces were to be used most efficiently.” https://www.joneslibrary.org/DocumentCenter/View/1249/What-Could-We-Do-With-Our-Existing-Footprint-April-2016-PDF.
__________
12,000 Square Feet
$46,139,800: Amherst Town Council’s authorized cost of Project
divided by
12,000 SF =
$3,844.98. per additional square foot
Sarah’s math is right, and its implications are extraordinarily disturbing….
The Jones Library demolition/expansion is absurd: as we mathematicians are wont to say It’s not even wrong!
Thank you Jeff..this is excellent historical information about how the library was initially intended to be privately funded and how now Amherst taxpayers bear the lion’s share of the library funding.
Two take away lessons –
1. Put the brakes on public taxpayer support for the Jones library now.
2. Watch carefully how NEW high priced town projects are established and funded so runaway funding doesn’t happen like the Jones. One new project is the new $2m Reparations effort. The reparations committee structure and funding protocols have yet to be determined and are being discussed at the next Town Council meeting. This is the time in history for Amherst taxpayers to weigh in and understand fully how the money will be allocated in perpetuity and how much taxpayer support will fund it yearly.
Are there other new projects to watch?
Sarah and Rob — Just a little clarification on how the project’s cost per sq ft. is calculated. The construction cost per the recent bid advertisement is projected to be $36,000,000.
Cost estimator Fennessey assumed there to be 35,555 sq ft of new construction + 28,683 sq ft of renovation work for a total construction area of 64,238 sq ft.
This works out to a construction cost per sq ft of $560.
The extravagance is not so much in the cost per sq ft but in what is being constructed.
Even with a calculation of 15,000 square feet (which is their number) it comes out to $3075.98, which is significantly higher than Sarah’s square foot construction cost estimate for the Northeast stated above.
Sarah was pointing out the most important ratio, Cost/Area, where Cost is the total project cost authorized, and Area is the net increase in usable area.
While I agree with Jeff that by demolishing so much of the Jones before rebuilding, the newly built area will be a lot greater than the net increase in usable area, I believe the thrust of Sarah’s point is
NOT:
that the construction contractors are draining the public coffers by overcharging for their work,
BUT RATHER:
that the project proponents are extravagantly expending the public’s limited resources on something with surprisingly little gained, and — quite arguably — so, so much lost!
How we got to this point should be subject of NOT merely articles comments in The Indy, BUT RATHER … [please fill in the details].
According to google math, $662,000 in 1919 is worth about $1,206,000,000 in 2024! Can you imagine anyone giving Amherst a gift of that magnitude today? Townspeople should be more grateful for Samuel Minot Jones’ treasure and not trash it just because it’s old. He built the finest structure of the finest materials using the finest craftsmen available in 1928 only a few years before the market crashed. You can’t buy materials like the stone carried by oxen across frozen earth, the Philippine walnut and mahogany doesn’t exist any longer likewise the craftsman who carved it.
Save this building for the next generation who might have more admiration and respect for its unique design and the values it represents. I thought we learned in 1966 what we lost by tearing down our old cities for new atrocities proven by our States and Federal government passing rigorous preservation laws to preserve our past.
Yes, yes, yes, to each of Hilda’s points!!!
And to her final point: if the Jones Library demolition/expansion debacle manages to happen, this will almost-surely go down in history as Amherst’s version of New York City’s “Pennsylvania Station” travesty-turned-tragedy…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_Station_(1910–1963)
… oft-cited as the event triggering the historical preservation movement.
As oversight of the Jones Library project continues, historical foundations of our American culture need to be respected. The word “honor” immediately comes to mind. It is threaded throughout our history.
Ask yourselves, are we preserving the “honor” Mr. Samuel Minot Jones deserves, as he left funding to construct this beautiful, historical building?
Are we honoring his intentions to provide a truly “free library” for Amherst’s residents?
Are we honoring the choices his original designers made, to make his library a comfortable place? One where visitors could feel like “Mother Amherst welcoming her children to the hearth.” Or, are we removing and destroying some of the most lovely aspects of the original design?
I am sure Mr. Jones would be horrified to see these current plans and discover how his generous gift has evolved. It is no longer a “free library”for the citizens of Amherst. He never intended the library become a huge community center and monetary burden to the taxpayers of his town.
The estimates for demolition and expansion of the building, in addition to repairs, are now so high that many taxpayers feel very burdened and upset. We know that many no longer support this project. Mr. Jones would be saddened to see such controversy brewing among town residents.
This current project should be immediately halted. The planner’s duty is to find a path that leads back to preserving the original intentions of Mr. Jones “free” library, while protecting our taxpayers.
It is our duty to honor this man, his vision and his generous gift.
Remember that history teaches us many lessons. Let’s learn from this one by doing what is honorable and correct.
Brava Dale!
Dave Carew hints at a potentially serious legal question:
Might the proposed Jones Library demolition/expansion project not only be a financial and cultural tragedy, fraught with all sorts of what-not by public officials and their fundraising (for whom?) partners, but also in violation of Samuel Minot Jones’s will?
Can somebody please check that out!?!