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Jackson County Library Boosters Gain GroundIt’s official: The reopening of the shuttered 15-branch Jackson County (Oreg.) Library Services could happen within the month, thanks to the September 26 approval by the county commission of a five-year management outsourcing contract with Maryland-based Library Systems and Services (LSSI). Effective October 1, the contract will pay LSSI just over $3 million for FY2007–08; LSSI CEO Frank Pezzanite said the firm planned to hire up to 60 workers to staff the system, saying in the September 26 Medford Mail Tribune, “We’ve been through this before. It’s nothing new for us.” A week earlier, the town of Ashland took matters into its own hands rather than await the commission’s decision. Citizens there overwhelmingly approved a levy September 18 to reopen its branch facility’s doors by November 1. “It says Ashland voters are unwavering in their support of unfettered access to public libraries,” Committee to Open Ashland Library Cochairwoman Pam Vavra said in the September 19 Medford Mail Tribune of the 74.6% yes vote. She went on to say, “Mayor John Morrison put it well—that nothing short of a full-service library was acceptable.” The go-ahead empowers the Ashland City Council to levy as much as 58 cents per $1,000 of assessed home valuation—substantially more than the 20-cent property-tax valuation council members approved for FY2007 and the 25-cent assessment for FY2008. Ashland officials believe that local support, in addition to the county’s contribution, would enable the branch to maintain 40-hour-per-week service instead of the 24 hours proposed by LSSI. Another Jackson County Library poised to make a 40-hour-per-week comeback is the Talent branch, funded by a monthly utility surcharge of $1.25–$1.50 per household that city council members approved September 20. The vote was the culmination of six months of weekly story hours and book swaps held on the city hall lawn. The two towns have bucked a countywide antitax sentiment that became evident in the May rejection of an initiative to fund the library system’s reopening after its indefinite April closure—the second levy defeat in six months. A subsequent Request for Proposals yielded LSSI’s original two-year bid to run the system for $4.3 million annually, roughly half the FY2006 library budget; the funds would come from a one-year emergency renewal of a $23-million federal timber subsidy with which the county finances many of its departments. Branch operating hours per week would be halved accordingly, ranging from eight to 24, except for the Ashland and Talent facilities. In search of a more permanent fiscal fix, the Task Force on Jackson County Services held the first of four public forums September 20 to consider additional revenue sources should Congress fail to continue renewing the timber subsidy. Library options included a dedicated sales tax and the establishment of a library taxing district separate from other county functions. “The libraries are just the canary in the coal mine,” noted former Ashland teen librarian John Sexton, according to the September 21 Tribune. “We’re being squeezed from the top down and we’re all feeling it.” Posted September 21, 2007; revised September 27, 2007. |
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