Costs of Greenwood library fire climb

The library won't reopen before November, and cleaning sooty books and repairing the small branch will cost $170,000.

[Times photo: Jill Sagers] Earl Lewis, a Clearwater maintenance worker, tears out shelves needing cleaning in the North Greenwood Branch Library on Monday.

By CHRISTINA HEADRICK

© St. Petersburg Times, published August 8, 2000

CLEARWATER -- The latest chapter for the North Greenwood Branch Library contains more bad news.

Damage estimates from a July arson have climbed to $170,000, and city administrators said Monday that they don't expect to reopen the neighborhood facility until early November.

Prosecutors also announced Monday that the three teenagers accused of breaking into the library and starting the blaze on July 16 will be tried as adults.

"All of the facts of the case, any prior records, play into that decision," said Beverly Andringa, an assistant state attorney, who was having the case paperwork filed Monday.

The teenagers accused of setting the fire are Leander Showers, 18, and Larry Miles, 16, both of 802 Jefferson Ave., as well as Shaun Seymour, 17, of 807 Jefferson Ave.

Showers still was in the Pinellas County Jail Monday, held on $35,000 bail. Miles was at the Pinellas County Juvenile Detention Center, Andringa said. Seymour has been released and is under house arrest, the prosecutor said.

Police originally reported the three admitted they set the fire. But Wayne Shelor, the Clearwater police spokesman, said Monday that information was incorrect. It was a fourth person with the group who turned in the other three, Shelor said. That person has not been charged, he said.

Damage to the small branch library was expected to cost more than original estimates, which capped repairs at $100,000 and targeted reopening in two months, said John Szabo, the city's library director. Now the facility isn't expected to reopen until November.

Smoke is the reason, Szabo said.

"The situation was that every single book was covered with soot," Szabo said. "I was amazed to see how the soot permeated every space in the facility. If you went to any book and touched it, the black soot would come off on your finger."

It is expensive to clean the branch's 30,000 books, including the city's collection of African-American literature, biography and history, Szabo said. The city is spending $60,000 to ship the books to Munters Corp., a cleaning company in Chicago.

The company will vacuum the soot individually from each book, wipe them off with specialized dry sponges and bombard the materials with an "ozone machine." That breaks down the "odor molecules" that permeate the books and erases their smoky smell, said Jake Bechtol, the Orlando-based district manager for the national company.

The city also will spend up to $55,000 to replace many of the videos and audio tapes at the branch because they are too difficult to clean, Szabo said. City librarians continued going through the materials by hand Monday to determine what they could keep.

Repairs to the library building at 1250 Palmetto St. are estimated at about $38,000, Szabo said. That includes laying new carpet and replacing the ceiling and the air conditioning duct work, as well as cleaning the furniture. City crews started the work last week.

"Smoke does do a number," said Bill Palisano, one of the Clearwater maintenance employees who has been on the job. Palisano pushed a paint roller back and forth on the ceiling of the library's foyer Monday, with white flecks of paint speckling his face.

The city will spend additional money to replace some furniture and an undetermined amount to repair computers, Szabo said. Other purchases will be delayed, Szabo said, because the city is planning to open a new $1.2-million North Greenwood library by the end of next year a few blocks away.

All the arson costs will be paid out of the city's central insurance fund because an outside policy doesn't kick in until there is $250,000 in damage, Szabo said.

Yet, all the news hasn't been bad.

When the staff of Tampa's WQYK-FM 99.5 heard about the fire, the country music station decided to have a fundraiser at a recent Faith Hill concert. So far, the station has raised about $2,000 in donations, including $1,000 from Ferman Chevrolet in Tampa, and checks keep drifting in, said morning show producer Walter Mills.

"We try to be really involved, especially when it comes to kids," Mills said.

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