Four full-time and seven part-time employees could lose their jobs when the merger is completed next July, the Ogden Standard-Examiner reported July 8. “There are employees here that love their job enough that they cried much of the day yesterday,” said Library Assistant Karen Bass, one of the affected staffers.
Kaysville Mayor Brian Cook said the strikers would not be paid for the missed time but faced no disciplinary action. “There's a lot of emotion involved here, and I can understand what they are going through.”
After the vote, a group of local residents who opposed the action quickly launched a campaign to collect 1,500 signatures to force a citywide referendum to overturn the decision. “We're going to make every effort to give the citizens of Kaysville the opportunity to voice their opinion,” said the group's spokesman Bret Passey.
But council members who supported the merger said it was the only option after a failed bond election last year and unsuccessful attempts to raise private funds. “For those holding signs that say 'Save our library,' if you don't think that is what all five of us are trying to do, you are sorely mistaken,” Councilman Gil Miller said at the meeting, according to the July 6 Standard-Examiner. “There is just disagreement on which way the library needs to be saved.”
Posted July 8, 2005.