The Newton County Library Board is currently in the process of selecting an architect for the new library, which will be located on Ga. Highway 212, next to Oak Hill Elementary School.

In addition to the $3 million taken out in bonds ($115,000 was also budgeted for the cost of issuing the bonds), funding for the library will come from a $2 million state grant and approximately $1 million from impact fees.

The bonds will be taken out at a 3.6 percent interest rate. The Newton County Industrial Development Authority will act as a conduit issuer or middleman and the bonds will be secured by an intergovernmental contract between the IDA and the county, according to a memo from investment banking services firm Merchant Capital.

The BOC looked into using its current and future impact fee collections as the sole securitization of the bonds but decided against it because impact fee collections have been down this year as a result of the housing downturn and because such a path would have come with a higher interest rate of 4.75 percent.

In other BOC news:

• The BOC tabled the consideration of an intergovernmental agreement between itself and the city of Newborn, which would have provided planning and development services to the city from the county, at the request of District 1 Commissioner Mort Ewing. Due to a continuing dispute on financial responsibility over a shared fire station, Ewing requested that the board wait until Newborn's lawyer had had a chance to review the document before approving it.

• A request for an increase from an originally permitted 235 children to 338 children for a still-to-be-completed daycare center on Salem Road was unanimously denied by the board.