Douglas County Library Bookmobile

by Lisa Crockett

Douglas County’s Director of Libraries, Jamie LaRue, is looking to add value to the Castle Pines North (CPN) community by giving it a new 6,500 square foot facility on the corner of Castle Pines Parkway and Monarch Boulevard.  LaRue outlined his plans for the new CPN library, as well as plans for the county-wide library system, at a community meeting held on October 2 at Buffalo Ridge Elementary.

“The libraries are not only an amenity to patrons; we can serve as an excellent ‘anchor’ tenant in a retail development.  We are a business that does not go out of business and we can really increase exposure and foot traffic for the businesses that surround us,” said LaRue.

The expansion of the library system into CPN, as well as new libraries in Lone Tree and Parker, will require a mill levy increase of 1.25 mills – a cost of about $9.95 cents per $100,000 in home value per year.

“We have cut costs and done our best to work smarter in all our facilities.  Up until now, we’ve been able to keep up with demand that has outpaced our population growth, but now we need more money to make some capital improvements to our system,” said LaRue.

On average, the mill levy increase would cost Douglas County residents about $30 per year.

Roughly 80 percent of all Douglas County residents hold a library card and all the libraries in the county are operating at full capacity. 

The library in CPN would have WiFi connections, a community meeting room, a study area and a children’s book area.  Materials from anywhere in the library system would be available to library patrons, but much of the material “in stock” at the library would be best sellers and children’s picture books, as well as movies and music. 

The mill levy will be listed as question 5A on the mail ballot for the November 6 election.  If the mill levy vote is successful, construction on CPN’s library would likely begin sometime next summer.