Left to right mayor Chris Goertzen, head librarian Loraine Trudeau, board member Barb Guenther, city councillor John Fehr

A sod turning ceremony was held in the rain Tuesday evening to mark the beginning of the expansion of the Jake Epp Library in Steinbach. Site preparation has been underway for a week or two and construction of the 6,000 square foot addition will start September 26th.

Head librarian Loraine Trudeau(left) is thankful to be at this point. She says, "We are so blessed that this council and this province believe in the need of this library expansion and that we are moving forward with the project. It'll bring such wonderful new programs that we'll be able to offer to our patrons. And, hopefully, at the end of the day, literacy will be a driving factor in all families."

City councillor John Fehr(right), the city's representative on the library board, and mayor Chris Goertzen both called it a great day for the city.

Councillor Fehr says it's been quite a baptism by fire to serve on the library board since first being elected 11 months ago. He adds, "I was wondering what the mayor was doing when he assigned me to the library board. But it's been a good experience." He says council did the right thing in arriving at a compromise about the scope of the project after the previous council experienced a good deal of conflict over the expansion.

Mayor Goertzen(left) commends council for working things out and making it happen. He adds this day has been a long time in coming, noting,  "I've been on council 9 years and I remember back probably the first year I was on council where there was a lot of discussion about expansion of the library, the needs that were there at that point, and they've only really grown since then. So it's very good to see this getting off the ground for the whole community."

The project will cost 1.9 million dollars with completion next summer or fall.

Trudeau asks patrons to be patient. She explains, "Of course there's going to be some inconveniences and some stress along the way. But we're going to take that stress and we're going to put humour on it and we're going to move forward and we're going to know that, at the end of the day, it's all worth it. So we're going to put up with the dust and the noise and having to close the library down possibly for a few weeks, (we're) not sure yet how we're going to do that, but we're going to make it as painless as we can for all of our patrons.