Residents Pack Library Grand Opening Event

A decade’s long journey finally came to a joyous end July 28 as Diamond Bar celebrated the opening of a new state-of-the-art library.

More than 500 people packed into the back parking lot of the of new city hall facility at 21800 Copley Drive. Mayor Ling-Ling Chang, mayor Pro-Tem Jack Tanaka and councilwoman Carol Herrera welcomed several dignitaries, including Sen. Bob Dutton, Congressman Gary Miller and Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe.

The new 27,000-square-foot facility is triple the size of its former location. City officials say it offers 83,528 books and materials, 37 public computer workstations – six of which are early literacy computers for ages 7 and under - with free WiFi Internet access, and three self-checkout stations.

Guests to the event toured the facility, which includes an area for teens, a children’s room with a sand box and an outdoor reading garden that features artist Frank Matranga’s mosaic tile art piece that one adorned the Grand Avenue library.

“When the new library was being designed, the staff felt really strongly, as I know the people of Diamond Bar did, that the mural should be integrated into the the space,” said Laura Zucker, Executive Director of the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, who spoke to the crowd.

The commission worked with the library to move the art piece. Art conservators from Silverlake Conservation were hired to restore and relocate the mural, Zucker said.

“This crew painstakingly took every one of the 170 tiles off the wall one-by-one. They were individually wrapped and numbered to correspond to a hand drawn map of the mural. And after the crew cleaned and repaired cracks they carefully reinstalled everything in the exact configuration as the original.”

The only difference is that at the old facility, the mural was not all in one room. Now, it can be seen as one whole piece, Zucker said.

For the city, the event was a day for celebration. Staffers set up craft booths and handed out balloons. In-N-Out served most of the guests free burgers and drinks.

And the whole thing was kicked off with recognition from local political figures and a look back on the decade-long effort to bring a new library to the city.

The city first tried to secure a new library in after the implementation of the Library Dond Act of 2000. The city, with support from the Pomona Valley and Walnut Valley Unified school districts and the county, put together a proposal. But due to limited state funding, it was one of 60 projects that was turned down.

Undeterred, Chang said the city put together a task force that assessed the needs of the library in the city and figure out a way to address them. A second opportunity presented itself in the 2006 California Reading and Literacy Improvement and Public Library Construction and Renovation Bond Act.

But the initiative failed at the ballot box. But with a plan already developed, Knabe was able to help the city secure $5 million to push the project forward. City Manager James DeStefano was credited for finding the building for city hall right across the street from the AQMD building which had been home to the civic center offices for years, Change said.

The council approved the purchase of the Copley Drive building in September 2010.

“The fact that it only took two years is really fast for government,” Supervisor Knabe told the crowd to some laughter.

“I must admit the old library on Grand Avenue will always hold a special place in my heart,” Chang said. “True it was small and we had long outgrown it, but it’s been a part of our community for over 35 years.”

“Throughout those many years, great memories were made at that location but I think we’re more than ready to start creating new ones at this new fabulous contemporary library,” Chang said.