Town receives 11 responses from architects; reviews qualifications tonight

Rockport hires Ben Blackmon as fulltime library director

Lynda Clancy

Thu, 02/11/2016 - 4:00pm

Ben Blackmon has been hired as the town’s fulltime library director, per unanimous approval of the Rockport Select Board. (Photo by Lynda Clancy)

The Rockport Select Board congratulates Ben Blackmon.

The location of the existing library building on the corner of Union, Central and Limerock streets in downtown Rockport.

Jon Scholz and Jan Rosenbaum talk with the Rockport Select Board about the library project.

ROCKPORT — The Select Board in Rockport voted unanimously Feb. 9 to hire Benjamin Blackmon as the town’s Rockport Public Library Director. Blackmon has been interim library director since Ann Filley stepped down late last year.

“I’ve been very pleased with his performance,” said Town Manager Rick Bates. “He executed the move and his ability in the library has been better than what I had hoped. He has the skills we need to move the library forward.”

Blackmon’s move into the directorship opens up the deputy library position at the library. The town plans to advertise for that soon.

“Ben will do a great job,” said Rockport Select Board member Ken McKinley. “I’ve been impressed with him since the beginning, and especially during the library move.”

Blackmon’s salary was set at $55,000 per year, plus benefits.

Prior to taking the deputy library director position in Rockport, Blackmon had been overseeing adult programming at the Rockland Public Library.

He obtained his master’s degree in library science from the University of South Carolina in Columbia, S.C., in 2012.

Prior to that, he was a library assistant at the Fogler Library in Orono, where he maintained the government publication online catalog. He also was a library intern at the Orono Public Library.

Before formally appointing Blackmon, the board and Town Manager Rick Bates had met with Blackmon behind closed doors. According to Bates, who cited the Rockport Town Charter, all hiring of department heads must be reviewed by the Select Board, a process that takes place in executive session. The employment decisions is then confirmed with a vote made in public.

Blackmon heads up a library that is currently in temporary quarters on Commercial Street (Route 1) while the town considers designing and building a new library at its current location on the corner of Limerock and Union streets in Rockport Village. The project also includes Memorial Park in the planning.

The 11-member Rockport Ad Hoc Library Planning Committee has been meeting since December to entertain and review architect qualifications. Submissions will be reviewed this evening, Feb. 11, at 6 p.m. in the Rockport Opera House meeting room, with the goal of selecting a number of top firms.

Those selected firms will be asked to present their conceptual ideas to the committee on March 16 and 17, the committee said on Feb. 8. The meeting will be broadcast via LiveStream http://livestream.com/Rockportmaine.

Guidelines set by the Select Board call for building a new library with approximately 8,650 feet of space, almost three times larger than the existing library building of 3,400 feet.

That library has been vacated since November and the town’s public works department drained the pipes and turned off the heat there.

According to the Ad Hoc Library Planning Committee, the list of considerations it is presenting to potential architects includes parameters that focus on building costs, the long-term use of the building, green space, the ambiance of the village, safe access, parking, programs and site planning.

The committee consists of Eric Denny, Ann Filley, Erik Frederick, Library Committee liaison Stephanie Kumble, Heather Mackey, Select Board liaison Tracy Murphy, committee Chairman Jan Rosenbaum, Vice Chairman Joe Sternowski, and Library Director, Ben Blackmon. The committee also includes Camden architect John Scholz, who is acting as professional adviser to the committee.

At the Feb. 9 meeting of the Select Board, Scholz urged the board members not to descend into the weeds of library design.

“Let the committee of 11 choose the firms,” he said.

And, he added, allow those firms to look at library design problems and solutions with their eyes and experience, and then produce creative ideas.

“Some may come up with bridging Limerock Street,” he said, referencing the scope of potential innovation. “There are any number of scenarios.”

He also advised the town not to try and budget for adding onto any new library.

“If you are going to do this, do it right and get the size right now,” he said. “Do it once. Don’t come back and try to expand it. Get what you want now. It will be easier to fund-raise for that now, and will be a better sell for the community.”

Board member Owen Casas said: “I’ve little desire to get lost in the weeds of what the architects do, but I want them to understand that walls are easy to construct in an add-on fashion.”

Scholz and the Select Board agreed that flexibility of design and construction to allow for any future library growth was important.

Topping the list of considerations, according to Ad Hoc Library Planning Committee member Jan Rosenbaum, is the cost of the library.

“The cost is beyond the top of the list,” he said. “It is right there with a big star on it.”

Select Board member McKinley said that architects must know that the town is open to closing off Limerock Street, or making it a one-way street.

“That street is negotiable,” said Rosenbaum. “We are interested in pedestrian safety. That whole intersection is negotiable and we want them to come back to us with interesting ideas.”

“The good news is that you will be working with qualified and creative architectural teams,” said board member Geoffrey Parker.

Other items on the list of considerations include:

Most important:

Design flexibility

Parking, drop-off and easy book return

Operational and maintenance efficiency

Dedicated computer and media spaces

Character and look of the building

Treatment of monuments

Clean sight lines for staff

Important:

Design for current staffing numbers