Wednesday, May 19, 2010
No, We Are Not Giving Up!
The library district was not approved in this election, which means that the three branches of the library will be closed as of July 1...and already people are beginning to realize how devastating this is going to be, both economically and socially, for the county. We will try again, with even more support from the community, and we will succeed! We will be updating you as plans develop, both on this website and on our Facebook page.
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So, how do we move forward from here? Hopefully, we can learn why the majority of people have voted no. I feel that many of the no voters were in support of keeping the library, just not in support of a permanent tax to pay for it. I think people are fed up of government not being responsible with the money we give them. With the current economy citizens are just not willing to pay more permanent taxes. Clearly, .70 per $1000 is not an option. What else can we do? Can we look at a scaled back budget, can we do some fundraising - if everyone who voted yes was willing to donate $200 we would collect $585,600. I feel like a lot of the no voters may be willing to put money toward this on a 'temporary' basis - could we operate the library for the county until timber sales improve or the budget has a better outlook?
ReplyDeleteNone of us have a good idea how to move on from here, except as noted above to try again at some point. There will be no county money for the library after July 1 and there is no prospect of the county budget outlook improving in the forseeable future. Library staff are already looking for other jobs. It simply is not possible to maintain a library anything like the one we've had (with a budget, before this year's severe cuts, of around $900,000) on the basis of contributions, user fees, or more volunteers. (There are already 40 active volunteers.) It's incomprehensible to me that people think adding even 70 cents, much less the 56 or so we were going to start with, to the county's $1.42 tax rate (which is the second lowest in the state) would be such a "waste." Wasco County's tax rate, for instance, is $4.25 and they APPROVED a library district like we wanted on top of that! We may end up with a "library" that's open a few hours a week with no professional staff, virtually no maintenance, and no new books ever, but I doubt even that's going to be workable. Most likely we will be the only county in Oregon without a library. Besides Wasco, by the way, twenty-three other of those counties have cared enough to approve a library district. Too bad we were unable to join them.
ReplyDeleteDo you have any data from HR County Elections detailing out the vote by City vs. County voters? Can the County sign the downtown library facilities and contents over to the City? If so, could the City then vote on a City-only library district?
ReplyDeleteIf you go to the Hood River County website and click on "elections," then "election results," they have it laid out by precinct. I haven't actually looked at it, but I'm told that a majority of the no votes came from the upper valley. I have no idea whether the county could sign the facilities over to the city or not. Probably not without also handing them the bond issue that has yet to be paid off, but it's an interesting thought. It would leave out the other two branches (Cascade Locks and Parkdale), which would be too bad but would also reduce operating costs. The PAC is going meet at least once more this coming week to brainstorm as many possibilities as we can come up with. I'll bring it up.
ReplyDeleteIt's been very clear to me from speaking to people I know personally that many of the upper valley ones who voted NO have some things in common:
ReplyDelete1) They own land
2) They're not the first generation on that land
3) They do not use the library
4) They see no need to pay for services they have no intention of using
5) As long as their family has what they want/need, social issues are not a priority - they see no value in community improvement.
Why not look to a corporation with a local presence for an endowment? Google? Weyerhauser? Bill Gates? Nike? Carnegie did it for Braddock, PA in 1889.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_library
Carnegie did it for HERE in 1913. And the community promised to provide their part in exchange.
ReplyDeleteThe community broke their promise this week.
I don't live in HR County and therefore couldn't vote, but have heard from voters who voted "no" that their reasons were:
ReplyDelete1) Thought the increase was too much
2) Didn't like a permanent tax
3) Didn't understand why the proposed library budget was double the current budget
I don't understand number 3 since it's completely untrue. The current budget is $730,000 which is a 30% cut of the normal budget in the past few years. To simply restore last year's hours and restore the staff cuts would have required a budget of around $900,000 which is what the proposed 56 cent tax rate would have accomplished. We did not believe that 56 cents to have a good library was too much. As for number 2, yes, it would be a permanent tax--just like the recreation district or the school district. That's the only way to get stable, long-term funding.
ReplyDeleteI am really hope people come to the meeting on Tuesday morning to get some ideas on how we can make this better, or at least less painful.
ReplyDeleteTell your friends
This vote was bad for library staff, but "good" for county taxpayers for a least one major reason. If the vote had passed it would be necessary to form the new District retaining employee salary and benefits at pre-district levels. Because it did not pass, a newly formed district's board will be able to set salary and benefit levels, resulting in a dramatically lower operating cost for the taxpayers. Not so great for previously HRCounty employees used to $200 health care deductibles and PERS, but the future board can still recruit great staff with decent benefits for a fraction of the county level. Same or higher level of service for .35 per/1000 sound good to anyone? (.35p/k would bring in approx.$600,000 which would be adequate without county level benefits)I am not happy that good people would have to take a cut in pay or retirement, but it does allow us to go back to the voters with a much more affordable and workable plan. I also feel that we could gather a lot of support from the upper valley if we charged out-of-district users $75 or more to use the library. Community Education and the Pool have already made this change...why not the Library? I truely appreciate all the hard work that went into the last effort, please don't give up. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous above said they really hoped people would come to a meeting on tuesday morning. I'd like to come...When and Where would be helpful information to post. I haved searched all overt this site and the county site and can find no information about this meeting. Is it for real?
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry I didn't see this comment sooner. Info about the meeting was in the Hood River News and on our Facebook page. There will be many more meetings, so keep an eye out.
ReplyDeletecarnegies gone board it up all three of them
ReplyDeleteAll right. O.K. I hope this blog will be about what we can do to keep the library open. What's done is done. Please.
ReplyDeleteAn escrow account for donations? Is that a possibility? Just got back from the library, and it's full of people as usual.
Corporate sponsors, like OPB?
Shall we research what other closed (and then reopened) did? I will do some research on that and report back.
My family would be making a contribution.
My family would help promote plans to raise money.
Giving up on holding another vote when this one lost by just 509 votes out of a total of 6379 total votes cast reflects a really negative attitude. 2944 people voted FOR creating the district with a cap of 70 cents per thousand mil rate and a proposed initial budget that did not appear on the ballot of 56 cents. We can pass this as is this November! Surely there are 300 people that voted YES that can work to convince 1 or 2 people who voted NO to change to YES! Many no votes were simply based upon two misconceptions: 1. That the library simply would not close - it was a bluff. and 2. That the county would find another way to fund it. Just finding and explaining the facts to those that held that belief will put this over the top. Change just 250 Nos to Yeses and we win. In the alternative, or along side this - Find 500 registered voters who did not vote in May and get a yes vote from them and this wins. This is well within reach and in my opinion, we came much closer to winning this than I predicted and expected. Come on folks. Lets start talking to our friends and neighbors. Go armed with information. Let's produce some "talking points" online brochures that we can print ourselves and distribute. There is NO organized opposition to this campaign. If we put feet on the street we will keep a first rate library system. It is not time to throw in the towel and forever lock the library into an inadequate funding mechanism. We should not do to ourselves what the sate voters did to Hood River County in perpetuity with an inadequate cap on our tax rate locked in place.
ReplyDeleteHere is where you can look at the election results on a precinct by precinct bases; http://bit.ly/bNxuOA
ReplyDeleteHere is the total vote:
http://bit.ly/bfYQgu
Let's look at some real numbers and put things in perspective:
ReplyDeletehttp://realhoodrivernews.blogspot.com/