More than a few pages have been stirred by the Josephine County Board of Commissioners’ surprising decision on Monday to end the lease of the local central library.
On Thursday, supporters of libraries took to the streets for a rally. Two commissioners now state that they only wish to renegotiate the $1-per-year lease and have no plans to evict the Grants Passbranch from its location in a county-owned facility in February.
But mistrust is more pervasive in the dusty stacks among public library administrators who are still wary after the system was shut down for two years in 2007.
“I consider it an eviction when you jump to termination and give someone 30 days’ notice,” Library Director Kate Lasky said. We were expected to consider what else?
The 40,000-person town of Grants Pass, which is located in southern Oregon between Interstate 5 and the Rogue River, has struggled for decades to secure funding for its library.
However, on Monday, during a commission meeting with two recently appointed officials—County Chair Ron Smith and Commissioner Chris Barnett—who had been sworn in just four hours earlier after winning the November election, things reached a breaking point.
The agenda item was brought up by John West, the third commissioner. He has two days remaining in office at Monday’s meeting after being recalled by voters in a special election held in December.
City employees informed the three-person commission about the aged ventilation system and leaky roof of the 15,000-foot library building, estimating that the entire cost of repairs would be $120,000. Comparable downtown rentals, according to the county’s property manager, are around $1 per foot, not the single dollar the library has been paying for the previous seven years.
West explained that the library might be used for other county services, saying that this has become a burden on the taxpayer.
However, he clarified, that does not imply that they have been expelled from the building.
The three commissioners unanimously decided to end the lease after West’s motion. The backlash followed.
Dozens of bookworms gathered outside the county courthouse on Thursday, holding books and signs explaining the importance of literacy and the long-overdue need for respect for our library.
According to Smith and Barnett, the vote is just one aspect of a rent dispute that has gotten out of hand.
We simply wish to revise the terms of the lease. Smith, an electric sign entrepreneur, told The Oregonian/OregonLive that it was quite easy.
Real estate agent Barnett went one step further and stated that no plans were in place to provide the 30-day written notice needed to end the lease. (Until they choose a third member to take West’s position next week, Smith and Barnett are constituting a two-person committee.)
According to Barnett, the next step will be for the county and library lawyers to meet.
“That’s all,” he said, “they’re trying to arrange a time to speak.” The door does not have a padlock. There’s no escape. No letter stating that you must leave the building is present. It doesn’t exist.
He had no idea when a meeting may take place, and neither did Lasky, the director of the library. Lasky also wouldn’t say whether she would think about paying more for the location at 200 N.W. C St.
This is the Josephine Community Library District’s Grants Pass branch.Sent in
The history of disagreements over library funding in Josephine County is both lengthy and brief. A lawsuit was started just over a year ago after the commission allowed a conservative activist to opt out of the library’s special tax district. On procedural grounds, the library won, but a new challenge is anticipated.
And library executives who have a good memory still remember how Josephine County officials were able to turn a special library levy that charged $0.33 per $1,000 of assessed property value into a permanent tax increase that went into county coffers thanks to statewide tax reforms implemented in the late 1990s.
However, 33 cents no longer goes as far as it once did, and by 2007, the county was experiencing financial shortages as a result of dwindling wood earnings. For the next two years, the library closed.
According to Jennifer Robertson, president of Grants Pass Friends of the Library, “the word trauma is too difficult to use, but we definitely still feel very bruised from that whole experience.”
The four locations of the library system were reopened with the help of volunteers, donor monies, and matching county funds. The Josephine Community Library District, which serves Grants Pass, Cave Junction, and smaller areas, was adopted by voters in 2017 in an effort to establish a dedicated financing source.
In addition to renovating a number of smaller libraries, the district has ambitious plans to build a new central library on property it acquired on Sixth Street, Grants Pass’s main thoroughfare.
Aside from books, the central branch provides a community room that is well-booked in advance, children’s programming, dog reading pals, and free wifi that is so well-liked that locals are known to access it from their cars in the parking lot after hours.
Supporters of libraries assert that the service is valuable in ways that go beyond money.
According to Bucky Dennerlein, a library volunteer who was present at the event on Thursday, “I believe in the library and I believe in a public entity that raises the consciousness of the entire community by being open, available, and not partisan.” We can’t stand that any longer.
For The Oregonian/OregonLive, Zane Sparling reports on court proceedings and breaking news. You may contact him at [email protected], 503-319-7083, or pdxzane.
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