Lakeshore has settled on a temporary fix for the Stoney Point library while a permanent solution is found.
Council has agreed to spend $185,000 on a 1,000-square-foot trailer to be located at Stoney Point Park.
But some councillors weren't keen on the move as council turned down spending $200,000 to renovate the current building rented by the town.
Councillor Steven Wilder says spending money on a trailer just doesn't make sense.
"I'm kind of a little confused by this, I'll be honest. The price tag that we'd seen was $200,000. Now we've got another proposal that, albeit it's cheaper, it's $15,000 cheaper, but I just can't understand why we would look at spending the same amount of money to put this portable idea in place when, quite frankly, we had one that we probably could have restored."
Wilder says the residents are still feeling left out of the process.
"They want to be consulted on stuff like this. They feel, once again, like they haven't been consulted. They're just being told here you go, here's a solution for a problem that didn't exist three months ago. Before we go ahead and commit funding, quite frankly on the fly like this right before budget, and it's not a small amount of money, I think we should talk to the community because there's a lot of concerns about the proposed location."
Councillor Len Janisse says he would have liked to see the community consulted as well before a decision was made.
"The comments I'm getting still are they want to consult, but we don't want them to have any say in what's going on. Very sad that we're not giving the people a chance. We're going to put this down and we could have kept that library for $200,000, but no, we're going to shove the portable in there and they don't want it."
Mayor Tom Bain joined Wilder and Janisse in voting against purchasing the trailer while the rest of council lent its support.
Councillor Kirk Walstedt says, with the current branch being a rental, he doesn't want to see taxpayer dollars spent on an asset the town doesn't own.
"I can't agree to spending any money to upgrade a building that's not ours. We don't own it at the end. So I just think this is an excellent way of proceeding. We told the people we'd get them a library to be used in the interim and then this affords us the time to have the consultations."
Deputy mayor Tracey Bailey feels the municipality has an obligation to provide library services.
"The facility is what our responsibility is here. Our duty is to provide a facility. So now we have a municipally owned asset and we're not investing another $200,000 into a rental unit. These are the critical decisions that need to be made. They're bold, they're focused, they're difficult to make, but that is what our duty is."
Councillor Linda McKinlay says purchasing a trailer is the way to go.
"We don't want to put any more money into a building we don't own. Dollar wise, we're kind of getting like-for-like here. We're going to either put up to $200,000 in a building we don't own or we're going to take the $200,000 and buy ourselves an asset and that's what we've done here."
The Essex County Library will contribute about $150,000 for the installation of internet and wireless services at the temporary location which is expected to be ready in the spring.
The funding for the new trailer will come from the town's Facilities Reserve Budget.
The town plans to hold a community engagement session in the new year to gather input on what the public would like to see when a permanent branch is built.