Rockford Public Library Votes to Accept Sullivan Center - Still Not Completely Done However

ROCKFORD - Library trustee members vote 5 - 2, Monday night, to accept the gift of the Sullivan Center to the Rockford Public Library.  However acceptance of the gift requires another vote of approval to finalize everything.

Two board members, Marjorie Veitch and Bradley Long, voted against bringing the Main Street arts center under the wing of the library.  They wanted to take a closer look at the results of a community survey about library usage, presented at Monday night's meeting. 

Long originally wanted to layover the vote on the Sullivan Center.  By laying over the vote till next meeting, he hoped to see if the information from the survey would give him and other board members better information to make an informed vote on the Sullivan Center.  The layover vote failed.

Board members in favor seemed to think it was a no-brainer to accept the gift.

"It just adds to the program abilities," said Ed Geeser, Rockford Public Library board secretary & treasurer. 

"It's a great additional asset to the library and it just opens up more programming possibilities with a venue that we don't currently have this type of venue to utilize."

The board's legal counsel will now draw up documents to make everything official, but will require yet another vote.  The vote finalizing the acceptance of the Sullivan Center will take place at their next board meeting on September 24.