County Library Director Working on Chiefland Construction Grant after Earlier Mistake

By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter

County Coordinator Wilbur Dean Wednesday said Library Services Director Darlene Slattery is preparing a state library construction grant for an addition to the Luther Callaway Library in Chiefland despite being under the mistaken impression earlier that the project wouldn’t be eligible for a grant.

Dean said he is aware the deadline for filing a Florida libraries construction grant application expired on May 20. He said it appears Slattery was given bad information indicating the state wouldn’t fund an addition to an existing library, but he said she is moving forward with the grant application now that she knows the project is eligible for state funding.

“I think that is something someone may have communicated to her. I’m not sure of that. I think she may have been given some bad information. I know we’re late,” Dean said. “I know when I figured it out, Darlene got up to speed. She’s gotten on it.”

The city doesn’t appear to have been at fault for the failure to file a state library construction grant application on time. The sole responsibility for filing a grant application lies with the director of the Levy County Public Library System, who operates the Chiefland library, not with the City of Chiefland, the library building owner. The Levy County Public Library system is funded by the Levy County Commission and operates community libraries throughout the county.

Chiefland received a donation of land for expansion of the Luther Callaway Library on Nov. 25, 2019. The W.O. Beauchamp, Sr. and Macey Callaway Beauchamp Trust donated the land to the city with the understanding that ownership of the land would revert back to the family if an addition wasn’t built by the end of 2023.

Former Levy County Library Services Director Niurka Klemencic, who resigned to pursue other opportunities in September of 2021, and the director who replaced her on Nov. 10, 2021, Darlene Slattery, didn’t file an application for a state library construction grant to fund the Luther Callaway Library expansion during the previous two grant application cycles.

The county is now eligible to file a state library construction grant application this year for the next grant cycle.

Emails provided to Spotlight by Belinda Wilkerson, deputy city clerk for Chiefland and former planning project director for the city show Wilkerson sent an email to Klemencic on Jan. 19, 2020, saying she would be working with the library director on obtaining a state library grant.

“Hi, I am with the City of Chiefland and will be working with you on a library grant. I have spoken with the State office that oversees the grant. They are expecting the grant application period to open in March sometime. They stated that they will email you, as the director, the specific dates of the grant period,” Wilkerson wrote. “I’ve looked up the grant requirements. Most of the questions will have to be answered by you. I will be glad to process the information you give me into the grant application. I have tried to call you several times. I am not sure if you received my voice mail. Please respond to this email so that I know you received it. Thank you and I look forward to working with you.”

Klemencic replied by email on Jan. 20 at 8:55 a.m. that she could be reached by phone at 352-486-5218. She sent a second email to Wilkerson later the same day at 3:43 p.m. saying she could be reached at a different number, 352-486-2015. Wilkerson was able to speak to the library director that day.

“I advised her that the state advised me about the process to which she said she was well aware of. The library director advised me that she would be calling the State to make sure she got the notice of funding opportunity when it became available and once she did, she would let me know what she needed from the city. I did not hear back from her, so on April 27, 2021, I sent her another email asking for a status update to which I never received a response to. I did not reach back out to the library after that point,” Wilkerson said in a written statement to Spotlight on Tuesday.

Wilkerson said she was contacted on April 27, 2022, by the new library director and she advised the person she spoke with of all this information. She wasn’t absolutely sure she spoke to Slattery on the phone. She thought it was Slattery. She was asked by the person she spoke with to provide the county with the minutes of the Nov. 25, 2019, Chiefland City Commission meeting where the Beauchamp family donated the land to the city. Wilkerson sent the minutes to Dawn Alexander, a part-time library assistant at Luther Callaway Library. She said the person she talked to by phone directed her to send the minutes to Alexander’s email. Wilkerson responded with an email attached to the requested meeting minutes.

Wilkerson went on to explain in the April 22 email to Alexander that Niurka Klemenchic was the person she had been in touch with previously. Wilkerson added in the email: “I had called the State agency that oversees the grant for the library system and they told me the library director would be notified of the dates of the application for the grant. I was advised of this and said that I would be available to help process the grant but I never heard back from anyone. The state advised me that they would not let me know of the opening and closing dates of the grant – only the library director,” Wilkerson said in the email.

Marian Deeny, program administrator in charge of the library construction grant program for the state, said she wasn’t familiar with Chiefland’s situation or if anyone from county government had contacted her office. She said cities and counties can apply for the grants but it’s more complicated than that.

“There’s a whole bunch of factors that go into the specific eligibility. Does the city own and run the library versus the county owning the library, so there are a number of different factors in eligibility,” she said.

Deeny added that counties and cities can go to the website of the Department of State, Division of Libraries and Informational Services to obtain the grant requirements to determine their eligibility.

Deeny said additions to libraries are eligible for grant funding.

“That is one type of program that can be funded with public libraries construction grant funds,” she said. “The funds can be used to build a new building, to expand or renovate an existing building, or to renovate an existing building that is not currently being used as a library to then be used as a library,” she said.

She said the maximum grant is $500,000. She said the next grant cycle begins early next year and will run for 60 days. She said the exact date of the grant application cycle next year hasn’t been set.

“If it was applied for in May of say 2022, it would go to the 2023 Florida Legislature to determine if they want to fund it or not,” Deeny said.