One thing that sent folks scrambling to make sure their voices were heard was the surprise addition of the October 10, 2018 board meeting, which left people unsure if the end of the month meeting would even take place, or if something severe would be decided at this new date that would make efforts to organize, and appear at the October 24th meeting pointless.
With that said, there are a few things to clear up before we move on to le scandale ... oh yes, my friends, it turns out libraries can have seedy underbellies! With many of us on a mad dash to assemble our thoughts, and respect the notion of brevity, a few things were lost in translation as made clear by the use of one of my first lines in the recording of the October 10th meeting. I believe its use was meant to put people at ease over the redistribution of funds, and to assure the listening audience that this was not, in fact, a case of the Haves versus the Have Nots.
When I wrote:
Primarily, I am deeply disturbed by the recommendation that public libraries in small, isolated, and economically depressed communities be shuttered in order to allocate funds toward expansion programs for facilities located near, and around our State’s Capital; an area with the population to support innovative fundraising techniques.It was in the context of, and in direct relation to the proposal in its entirety. The other people who echoed similar sentiments, and I were not speaking of a literal, straight across trade -- X location closes so Y can take all of X's allotted funding, and expand. I don't think anyone who joined the discussion was confused by the proposal to that degree. However, when it's necessary to reduce an entire near-90-page document into talking points in order to compose a response, the reader must take into consideration, and keep intact, the overall frame of reference the conversation is held in. When that is done, it is obvious what is implied within the body of text. Taking one line out of a 5-page letter, and drilling down on it as if it is a stand alone point while disregarding the document it's countering in order to lay a new interpretation on it comes across disingenuous, and exposes a willingness to seemingly purposely misunderstand public outcry, which of course, makes it incredibly easy to pacify some, whilst silencing others.
To put it more simply, when you frame a thing as something it's not, it's quite easy to say, "Oh no, that's not what this is; that's not what we're doing here," and wash your hands of the topic, and walk away with a clear conscience.I should have taken the time to spell it all the way out, and perhaps I would have if I'd been given a full year to draft a line-by-line rebuttal, which is the same amount of time that was allotted to whomever drafted The Capital Facilities Plan in secrecy. Apparently the line needs to read, "Primarily, I am deeply disturbed by the recommendation that public libraries in small, isolated, and economically depressed communities be shuttered in order to allocate funds toward expansion programs including, but not limited to facilities located near, and around our State’s Capital; an area with the population to support innovative fundraising techniques," since there were ideas of expansion being floated for several locations, as well as the rolling-out of new additional services to certain areas within the entire region.
The fact remains, however, that it had been recommended that small towns, cut off from other services, and opportunities where local schools do not have their own in-house libraries lose their city library facilities, if not completely, they were to be replaced with locker systems, or bookmobiles. Let me say this again, because I can't quite believe it myself.
Municipalities that can not even provide libraries on school grounds for their children's education were slated to lose their local city libraries.Excuse me, but how does that even work? How does homework get done? How can anyone research, or find reference materials for papers, and class projects? This might come as a surprise to some of my readers, but not every home in America has (1) a computer, (2) an Internet connection, or (3) a printer, and that is the case for a lot of families in these rural communities, so if they can't get their hands on the proper materials, they can't even Google it at home. How are children supposed to function in any sort of academic way, let alone graduate when they've been stripped of all of their resources? Thievery of this nature sets residents up for a whole slough of social problems that can last generations.
I mean ... The board could sit there, and try to put lipstick on a pig, but everyone paying attention could all still see (a marginally more attractive) pig wagging its squiggly little tail. When poorer communities are deprived of their services, and resources in order to redistribute funding, and that funding ends up in part going to wealthier regions, in order to correct an overall deficit, it quite literally is taking from the Have Nots, and giving to the Haves no matter how it is sliced. "Under performing" libraries in locations with sparser populations were chosen as potential closures because they exhibited dead hours, and lower library card usage, especially compared to more heavily populated areas. Yeah, that's how that works. When people have to work multiple jobs, or take overtime shifts in order to make ends meet (because in many of these towns, the cost of living is the same as larger cities, with a much lower median income) no one is going to the library at 10 am. As it is now, many of the facilities are barely open much past a typical "quitting time" for the majority of the week.
It shouldn't be as complicated as making a Doctor's appointment, just to get into a local library.
One thing that really bothered me about the recent Board of Trustees meetings is the message: If you love your libraries, prove it to us. I'm trying to be objective, but I found this to be incredibly childish. As I pointed out in my letter, many people can not possess library cards, and thus must read their selections in-house after browsing the stacks, and therefore leave no footprint behind of ever having been there. Beyond that, this isn't how agencies, programs, and services that directly cater to our social needs work, anyway. You don't tell people,
"Oh, you do like having a fire department in your town? Prove it. Burn your house down."
Sundays we visit the park (stay off the grass), Mondays we swipe the cards for the books, Wednesdays we wear pink, and Fridays we light our homes on fire to show the fire department how much we care.The dystopian novel could almost write itself ... albeit highly derivative, especially if Mondays, and Fridays are condensed into one activity - the characters could end up existing in a Mean Girls / Fahrenheit 451 crossover! "On October 3rd, he asked me where I hid my overdue books..."
Anyway, the point is, while an increase in engagement would be wonderful, it shouldn't be a requirement in order to keep crucial services, and facilities open to the public. This kind of thinking ultimately blames the public for a problem the general population didn't even know about, and allows trustees, and administrators to assuage their own guilt for letting things snowball for so long before taking any discernible action.
Little did the townsfolk know, an avalanche was coming; carefully planned, and laughably executed it ended up burying the wrong (or the right) person(s) in its path. Now, it's no secret that small towns never have a lack of unqualified people trying to make a name for themselves, but this library mishegoss takes the cake! It begins with a looming budget deficit the public wasn't privy to, and ends ... Well, we'll find out on December 19th exactly what the beginning of the end will look like, but from here, for some, it appears a little bleak.
Sometime in 2017 committees were formed, and the plan to draft a proposal to [fix] the Timberland Regional Library's budget deficit was requested, and / or okayed by someone -- it would be interesting to me to find out who that someone is in order to see if it's anyone attempting to play dumb now that it's all blowing up. Moving on, the Capital Facilities Proposal was finally released to the public at the end of September 2018 after the plan to close several library locations was leaked by an anonymous employee. One of the first to hear the news was a member of the clergy, who in turn followed their conscience and informed their flock of what was afoot in their community. Let me tell you, whoever threatened library employees with firings, retaliation of any kind, and kept librarians under a gag order sorely underestimated the heart, conscience, and gossips of these towns! When I first heard about how librarians had been pressured to keep mum on the topic, I threw my head back and laughed.
"They really tried it, but they definitely don't know much about small towns!"
Thankfully, people risked unemployment in order to speak out, not just about this topic, but also the overall tyrannical culture cultivated within the library administration, and the fear that many library employees operate under on a daily basis. Without the few souls who spoke up, it's hard telling what would've been voted on, and passed behind the backs of the communities it would've impacted the most. I'm thankful to each, and every one of them, as well as Alex Brown and his reporting for uncovering something whose surface was only being scratched by the whistle blowers. A huge "thank you" also needs to go out to Lewis County Commissioner Edna Fund for not dropping the topic, and ensuring that this continues to be looked into, and corrected long term.
However, beyond the drama of the slated closures, etc, there is still the matter of money mismanagement that should be thoroughly investigated. I'm with Larry "No Chill" Kearns on this point, how exactly did we get here? We can't blame all of the TRL's money problems on restrictions, and regulations of the timber industry. Environmental protections have been ramping up since the late 1980s and are hardly anything new, especially in timber communities. Trustees, and administrators have had 30+ years to research new and innovative ways to wean TRL off of dwindling timber dollars, so to see people acting dumbfounded over it now, in 2018, is jarring. Being a longshoreman's daughter, myself, I had a front row seat from a very young age of the shift industries had to make away from relying so heavily on timber (exports in our case) as a sustainable source of cash flow. Even though my family seemed to slip through unscathed, for a while "spotted owl" was a dirty word in my household during my childhood, followed closely by "environmentalist" because the changes that were put in place, and continued to come were hard to stomach, and devastating to some families, and even entire communities in some cases.
Obviously, I don't think the Earth should be scorched, and animals left homeless because the hoomans want the things, but I think like most things in life it all could've been handled better for everyone involved, feathered or otherwise.The thing about these towns, though, is that you would've had to spend your entire life under a rock not to understand the impact the loss of timber dollars was having, and be able to look down the pike and understand where things were headed in the future. So, for me, reading articles, and looking in on board meetings where people are shrugging, throwing their hands in the air, and shaking their heads it's just a little too rich ... I mean, call the Academy, because we've got some truly Oscar-worthy performances occurring. You can only do so much hand wringing before you look totally inept, and make people wonder why exactly you're sitting on a board to begin with. I can only hope that the people and organizations that the TRL Administrative Team, and Board of Trustees answer to do not drop the ball, and actually get to the bottom of what happened here, and get real answers for all of the communities they serve and represent.
As of now, the TRL Board of Trustees voted unanimously to "permanently and immediately dissolve the Capital Facilities Proposal". Read the official news release here.
Post Script:
Moving forward I put it to the men of the board to consider how their actions, and comments appear, and come across during meetings. In particular the discussion surrounding the murder of a woman near a library that impacted procedures for library staffing for the entire region. People often quote that violent crime has been declining since the 1990s, but a rather "invisible statistic" is that violence against women has been on a steady increase since 2009, so to see male members of the board scoff at the necessity of a 2 person staffing solution is rather disturbing. Yes, there are jobs where 1 person is on the schedule, and oftentimes the buildings these jobs are in are fully outfitted with surveillance equipment, loud buzzers / alarms on the doors, a panic button, and a shotgun behind the counter. If board members would like to see Timberland Regional Libraries managed and staffed the same way that 24 hour gas stations are, then that's definitely something worth putting on the agenda for future meetings, but if they don't, reacting to current staffing requirements as if they are absurd is not doing much for optics, or to encourage trust from community members, and employees of the TRL system.
I hope the librarians have a strong union that puts their physical safety at the top of their priorities. I have been assured by a member of the board that the Board of Trustees takes the safety of the librarians very seriously, and I hope that is true. I also hope that the few well-informed women of the board will no longer be put in positions to clean up the messes left by some of the more glib sounding members.
