In North and South County, long-awaited library upgrades are coming soon.

It was a good week for libraries on Monterey County’s northernmost tip and its southernmost point.

On Tuesday, April 22, the Monterey County Board of Supervisors voted 5-0 to move forward with adding a new library in Bradley. The week prior, on April 15, the board approved funding to repair the flood-damaged Porter Vallejo Mansion in Pajaro, which previously housed a North County branch of the Monterey County Free Libraries.

Bradley has been without a library branch since 2017, when the county’s lease of a Dixie Street building ended. The Porter Vallejo Mansion, meanwhile, has been off-limits to the public since 2023 flood damage. The Monterey County Free Libraries’ Bookmobile visits both towns on a regular basis, but in the case of Bradley, its distance to the nearest physical library location makes it difficult to effectively serve the community.

The new, 2,500-square-foot Bradley library will be located next to Bradley Elementary School, on land donated to the County of Monterey by the Bradley Union School District that is currently being used as a school bus parking lot. So far, the county has spent $586,042 on design and planning, while construction funding will be sought in the 2025-26 budget cycle, which is currently in discussions.

Also requested in the budget mix for next fiscal year is roughly $4 million needed to fully complete the proposed upgrades to the Porter Vallejo Mansion. But whether or not that wishlist gets funded, the library will reopen thanks to the board’s April 15 decision.

Months after the Pajaro River levee breached and flooded Pajaro, the state allocated $20 million toward the town’s recovery through Assembly Bill 102, with the caveat that the funds be expended by the end of 2025.

In 2023, the supervisors agreed on how to divvy the money, with $10 million going toward direct aid to residents and businesses, and the rest being used for other means such as infrastructure projects, including for the renovation of the 1850s-era Porter Vallejo Mansion, which was listed as one of the priorities from residents.

According to Monterey County Chief of Facilities Florence Kabwasa-Green, the county originally allocated $3.2 million of its reserves to repair the damage to the building and get it back to its previous state before the flood. The plan was to later use $3.5 million from the state’s $20 million to upgrade the mansion by building access to the second and third floors, which have historically been closed to the public due to ADA issues; expanding the outside play area; and restoring the water tower onsite, among other things.

But emergency repairs to the building proved more extensive and expensive than originally thought, more than doubling the cost to $7.1 million.

The board decided to use the $3.5 million originally set aside for proposed upgrades for the urgent repairs instead. That leaves nearly $800,000 unfunded for water tower repairs and $3.2 million for the full upgrade project. Those projects are on hold pending budget allocations.