District Library announces Roys Street sidewalk finally paved

“The Roys Street sidewalk has been poured,” reported Belleville Area District Library Director Mary Jo Suchy at the library board meeting on Oct. 10.
“The city completed work on the Roys Street sewer pipe,” she said. “This pipe did not exist on any of the city’s blueprints and the photographs from the library construction elevation of that site did not show any sanitary mains at the site of their underground work.
“I share a sense of relief with the city and the church that this problem has finally been solved,” Director Suchy said.
“I’m happy it’s been taken care of,” she said, adding, “I don’t have a lot of information from the city.”
At a recent Belleville City Council meeting, Pastor Robert White of Belleville First Baptist Church said the problem his church has had with the drain from its bapistry and two restrooms had been solved by the city finding its unmapped pipe that was damaged by library construction.
The problem had been going on ever since library construction and the source had been identified by Pastor White and city DPW Director Rick Rutherford from the beginning, with the library construction crew denying responsibility.
The present city administration reportedly said it didn’t care whose fault it was, but to just fix it.
At the 51-minute meeting on Oct. 10, the board:
• Learned the library’s analog phone lines, damaged in an August storm, are still out of service to the fax machine, elevator, and fire system. Suchy said she is exploring options for converting the elevator phone and fire phone to a cellular service;
• Heard Suchy report that six library staff members have been sidelined by COVID over the course of the past three weeks and most of them hadn’t had COVID before. She said most of the cases can be attributed to a family member or general community spread. Staffing all of the public service desks has been challenging during this time, she said;
• Heard Suchy report that the update to the library website has long been on her to-do list and they are looking at multiple firms of professional library or municipal to update the site. The event calendar and room-scheduling software that is being used will be discontinued next August so they are evaluating new products for that, as well;
• Learned the youth/teen library internet use for the 2023-24 fiscal year so far has increased 70.24% from use in the 2022-23 fiscal year at this time. The adult internet use for this fiscal year so far has increased by 21.30%. Total library visits are up 13.30%. Youth/teen programming is up 32.73%; and
• Was informed honey harvested from the bees on the roof was to be available at Harvest Fest on Oct. 14 at $10 a bottle. Fresh energy has been brought to planning of the activities for Harvest Fest by library employees who had planned new events.