Expect a Halloween opening at the latest, the Board of Education was told. But it proved to be another faulty prediction.

After six years and more than $1 million in cost overruns, the library remains unfinished. School officials are now hoping the doors will open by Thanksgiving, later this month.

On Oct. 8, department facilities planner Carol Ching told the board's Committee on Support Services that the library would be ready for books and readers by the end of the month, and "we want to be sure that's not a Halloween trick."

"At this point it may look like it's a trick instead of a treat," Principal Stanley Kayatani said yesterday, "but we are very hopeful that we can at least move in by Thanksgiving."

The books from the school's old library have been packed in boxes since this summer.

School board member Robert Fox said the department owes the board an explanation.

"It's not only appropriate, but it's necessary for the Board of Education to be able to depend on the Department of Education for its information, and we legitimately took them at their word," he said. "Now we find out that it's still not done, and, as a member of the Business Services Committee, I certainly was not alerted or informed. This makes me angry."

Ching said the department and the state Department of Accounting and General Services are doing everything they can to push the project along, but the contractor, Universal Construction, is awaiting the arrival of the exterior doors for the facility.

The doors should arrive by next week, she said. Some touch-up painting also is needed.

Kayatani said the project's pace has sped up since a Sept. 28 Star-Bulletin story chronicled the years of delays.

The project was originally funded at $400,000, but the cost grew to $1.5 million, according to school district officials. It involves renovation of a former cafeteria built in 1939 for library use.