OCONEE COUNTY — A growing Oconee County needs to invest in libraries, but a proposed 1-cent local option sales tax is only one way of doing it, members of the County Library Commission said Thursday.

John Adams, chairman of the commission, pitched a proposed $9.1 million library for Seneca to the County Capital Projects Commission as one project to vie for funding if voters pass a proposed local option sales tax in 2010.

The tax, projected to raise roughly $54 million, has been twice rejected by Oconee County voters. The most recent attempt was defeated in November 2006.

While it would be nice to have the project financially supported with sales tax revenue, Adams said, if the tax passes, the earliest the new library could open would be 2013.

“I don’t want to wait that long,” he said, adding that construction costs could be expected to increase roughly $500,000 a year.

If the County Council would approve the proposed site and commit to building a new library, Adams said, fundraising for the project could begin, including the possibility of grants.

He said he intends to urge the County Council to take that action.

Adams and architect Brian Deichman of McMillan Smith & Partners of Spartanburg unveiled plans for a two-story, 33,000-square-foot library proposed to sit on a five-acre tract donated by the School District of Oconee County adjacent to the planned new Blue Ridge Elementary School on S.C. 59.

The library would replace the current 9,000-square-foot Seneca library.

Adams said some have expressed the opinion that the library commission just wanted a library for Seneca, but that isn’t true.

The library commission had submitted to the County Council for each of the last three years a master plan that called for upgrades to libraries in Walhalla, Westminster and Salem and a new library in Fair Play, Adams said.

The total cost of the plan was roughly $14.5 million.

But Seneca has been the site of the most critical need and the largest concentration of library users, Adams said.

“Seneca residents hold 47.4 percent of all the library cards in the county,” Adams said.

The proposed library would require six more employees than the current facility, adding $175,000 per year in salaries to the county payroll, excluding benefits, according to Adams.

Berry Nichols of Walhalla said he thought the planned library larger than was necessary. He asked why the library commission didn’t consider more modest plans.

Capital projects commission Chairman Don Fuller cited estimates that the county will add 30,000 residents by 2025 to its current estimated 70,000.

“We’re a growing county,” said Fuller. “We require services.”

Adams agreed.

“We’re not building this library for now,” he said. “We’re building it for the next 30 years.”

Dewitt Martin, representing Seneca on the capital projects commission, said he would like the entire $14.5 million slate of building and upgrades on the library commission’s master plan to be part of the 2010 sales tax referendum.

He stressed that it was important to dispense with the notion that the proposed library is just for Seneca.

During the last push for the sales tax, Martin said, the commission had proposed roughly 25 projects on which to spend the $54 million.

“This time, we want to look at fewer projects, maybe six or seven, that will serve the most people,” he said.