Rouzan row could reignite

• By SCOTT DYER
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Apr 25, 2008 - Page: 1B - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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The Battle of Rouzan may not be finished quite yet.

Two members of the East Baton Rouge Library Board are pushing to drop the proposed Rouzan traditional neighborhood development on Perkins Road as a site for a new branch library.

Citing a lack of progress by Rouzan developer Tommy Spinosa, Library Board members Stan Bardwell and Don Browning called for a vote Thursday to build the proposed south Baton Rouge library on a 6-acre site on Burbank Drive donated to the library system in late 2004.

“We owe it to the public, and especially those who live in that area, to move on,” Bardwell said at the board’s monthly meeting Thursday.

The board decided to delay the vote until its May 15 meeting to give Spinosa and others a chance to sound off on the issue.

John Berry, a Southdowns resident who opposes Rouzan, said the Library Board has ignored the Burbank land donation for the past three years in order to negotiate with Spinosa.

Browning said the Library Board should have started construction on the Burbank site as soon as the library property tax renewal passed in 2005.

If the Library Board opts to dump Rouzan as a library site next month, it could eventually bring the Rouzan issue back before the council.

Any contract for the design and construction of a new library has to be approved by the Metro Council.

In other action Thursday, the Library Board approved a plan to find a replacement for Library Director Lydia Acosta, who resigned last week to take a job in Florida.

At the urging of Library Board Chairman Dan Reed, the board agreed Thursday to use the same process used to hire Acosta in 2003.

In that case, the board advertised for a director in library journals then conducted preliminary interviews at the annual American Library Association meeting.

The board also agreed Thursday that Reed and former Library Board Chairman John Carnahan would conduct the preliminary interviews at the association meeting in June.