​The Mount Vernon City Council at its Oct 28 meeting approved the Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) for the city looking out five years.  Funds for the new Library Commons have been included as a priority level 2 project (It is the City’s #1 project for 2021).  The estimated expenditure is $38 million to be spread over three years of the construction process (design expenditures are expected in 2021).  The Foundation has committed to providing $4 million of funding to support the interior appurtenances that will go into the facility.  $14 million is expected to come from the Local Infrastructure Financing Tool  (LIFT) Program which basically redirects sales taxes paid to the state back to Mount Vernon for this worthy local project.  See the full CIP report at mountvernonwa.gov/140/Capital-Improvements-Plan

​The Skagit Valley Co-op 4% Friday grant has enabled the library to buy high quality materials to read, learn from, and be entertained by.  Library staff member Andrea Alaniz has taken the lead in ordering materials to boost interest among Spanish speaking community members. She has ordered an array of Spanish and bilingual books for children and adults both fiction and non-fiction. Children will see new chapter books, board books, and non-fiction books on subjects such as space, animals, and the environment. New poetry, graphic novels, and holiday books will add spark to the collection. Adults will find new books on parenting, cooking, finances, relationships and business. They will also find a mix of popular fiction originally written in both Spanish and English and translated. The Co-op grant has planted a seed that will be nurtured by the library to continue to grow the collection for Spanish speaking community members.