Submitted by Carl Luna
Dear Members of the Coronado Community:
The Coronado City Council Subcommittee (consisting of Councilmembers Casey Tanaka and Carrie Downey) will be holding their final public forum on proposals for the Winn Room renovation on Thursday, June 6, 3pm in the Nautilus Room of the Community Center. Please attend the meeting and let the Subcommittee, City Council and Coronado community know you support the City adopting a plan for renovating the (50-year old) Winn Room that provides the Library and our community with a state of the art civic engagement, celebration and performance center that will effectively serve the needs of our community for decades to come. This will be the last opportunity for members of our community to make their opinions known to the Subcommittee before they release their report to the full City Council (as early as July.)
The Winn Room rocks an aging, fading 1970s vibe which is apropos as it has only received superficial facelifts since opening in the 1970s. With its current low ceiling, out of date AV system and limited seating capacity, the Winn Room is simply not up to the task of providing our community with a state of the art civic engagement and presentation space that can accommodate all the community-enriching programs and events our Library provides each year.
That is why the Friends of the Coronado Library have endorsed what is known as Option 4 as the best option to achieve these goals. (Go to www.projectcoronado.org/library-winn-room for additional project information). Option 4 will raise the ceiling of the room, providing for better visual sight lines and participation space; provide a state of the art presentation system for community events; and, most significantly, expand seating capacity from the current cramped 135 to over 200 attendees. Best practices in Library design call for meeting/community event spaces that can accommodate 200 or more attendees to allow optimal opportunity for community participation and engagement in civic and cultural programs.
The minimum cost for a bare-bones facelift of the room without significantly redressing structural and functional deficits is almost $3 million. At $9 million, Option 4 is more expensive to be sure, but only Option 4 will provide our library and our community with a fully functional, 21st century civic space for the next 50 years. Indeed, this best option for the Winn Room will cost about the same as what the City will spend on the new irrigation system for the golf course and about a quarter of the Coronado Cays Park redesign. Moreover, the Friends are actively soliciting partners to create a Win the Winn Room Capital Campaign to offset some (if not most) of the costs to the City. (Please note that Option 4 will not necessitate a net reduction of trees around the Library. The City is looking at replacing any trees impacted by Winn Room renovation, preserving the Library campus canopy.)
The June 6 meeting will be devoted to public comment on the four plans. Your attendance at this meeting to express support for your library is of critical importance. Copies of the meeting agendas can be found at www.coronado.ca.us. You can also provide your opinion to the Winn Room Subcommittee (consisting of councilmembers Carey Downey and Casey Tanaka) and City Council via email at [email protected] or [email protected].
Please reach out to your City Council members and attend the June 6th meeting.
With Respect,
Carl Luna
President, Friends of the Coronado Public Library
