FRANKLIN COUNTY — The Franklin County grand jury is recommending that the county build a new library in Carnesville and make significant improvements to the Lavonia-Carnegie library.

It’s a question and concern that also was raised by members of the audience at a recent Franklin county political forum.

Lavonia’s Carnegie library is on the National Register of Historic Places. It was built in 1907 with a $5,000 donation from the Carnegie-Mellon foundation. It is one of the only Carnegie libraries in a small town in the country.

The library is operated today by the Athens public library system, but the building is owned and maintained by the city of Lavonia. Word of the grand jury’s recommendation to renovate the Lavonia-Carnegie library came as news to city fathers.

“I don’t understand how the grand jury can come in and say anything about a city-owned property,” Lavonia City Manager Gary Fesperman said. “I’ve got a little bit of an issue with that. No one from the grand jury has said anything to us about it at all. We haven’t been included at all, zero, nothing.”

Since it was built, few changes have been made to the facility, but according to Fesperman, Lavonia is doing the best it can to keep the old library building functional and available to the public.

“We work on that building as we have money to do so. You know it’s an historic building, and we try to work on it as we have money to do so to keep it structurally sound,” Fesperman said.

The most recent work was the installation of a new heating and air-conditioning system. Fesperman said Lavonia budgets roughly $35,000 a year for upkeep of the library, with much of that money generated by the current special local option sales tax. No extra money is available, however, to make any major renovations.

Library manager Emma Lecroy said several immediate problems need to be addressed, and she pointed to a wall behind one of the stacks where water is seeping in causing damage to the plaster.

“Years ago, someone pressure washed the brick on the exterior of the building,” Fesperman said. “When they did that, they took off a protective coating that keeps the water out. Because bricks are porous, water seeps through them into the interior wall.”

When asked if the city plans to solve that problem, Fesperman said it would be very expensive, and the money isn’t available right now.

Lecroy also said the eaves under the downspouts that are rotting under the paint is another problem, but she said more than that, the lack of space inside and the lack of parking are the biggest concerns.

“There’s no way to build more rooms, except to go up,” Lecroy said. “But you’d have to put in an elevator, because it would have to be wheelchair accessible. With this historical building the front cannot be touched or changed in any way. The only work we could do is inside, but there’s no room to expand.”

Right now, the library has only four designated parking spaces on one side of the building but also uses a vacant lot across the street for parking.

“We’d like to see (that vacant lot) paved with parking spaces, because we really need more parking,” Lecroy said.

No one is arguing the building needs to be renovated, but right now money is not available unless another special local option sales tax is passed in the future, according to Fesperman.

But Franklin County Manager Frank Ginn, who sits on the Athens Regional Library System board, said there might be funding available from the state.

“Several years ago, the state had a 90/10 fund for building new libraries where the state would fund 90 percent and the community 10 percent, but with the current economic crisis, I’m not sure if that funding is still available,” Ginn said.

Fesperman believes the county should consider building a library annex to the Lavonia facility on the outskirts of town.

Franklin County now is home to two libraries, one in Lavonia and another in Royston, and Fesperman believes the county could benefit from a third, he said.

Ginn said any new library would need to be requested by the local library board.

“Libraries are a point of pride for a community,” Ginn said. “The local library board in Lavonia would have to make recommendations to the regional board as to what they would like to see here. Then, they would request funding for a new library from the county or get local donations. Then it would be up to the county commissioners to act based on that request.”

Building a new library in Lavonia was considered a few years ago. But according to Fesperman, public outcry against the idea caused the city and the Athens Library System Board to drop the idea.

“People here love their historic library, and they don’t want it touched or closed,” he said.