The Timberland Regional Library director acknowledged the “distress” felt by fans of the organization and recommended that its leadership scrap a plan that would have closed or significantly altered many regional libraries.
”I would like to apologize for the distress the Capital Facilities Proposal has caused our patrons and residents,” Director Cheryl Heywood said during last week’s Board of Trustees’ meeting in Tumwater. “I understand the Board of Trustees has tabled the Capital Facilities Proposal until Aug. 1, 2019. I have made a recommendation to the Ad Hoc Committee to do the following: to propose that the Capital Facilities Proposal as it stands as a holistic plan, be permanently and immediately tabled, which means not closing any libraries and eliminating the Aug. 1, 2019, timeline.”
The Ad Hoc Committee of board members was “created to explore elements of the proposal in greater detail along with discussing related policy and budget implications,” according to the TRL website.
”We would continue to look at alternative services, such as Open Plus, mobile services or digital libraries,” Heywood said. “We then would move forward together, as we have in the past, working on a strategic plan for 2020 to 2022. As in the past, a strategic planning committee would be formed, meeting regularly, of course that’s made up of board members as well, reviewing community and staff input taking into account a deeper look at the financial impacts.”
The board then voted unanimously “to permanently and immediately dissolve the Capital Facilities Proposal, agreeing to allow no closures of existing library buildings in the foreseeable future (unless required for health and safety reasons),” according to a release from Jeff Kleingartner, TRL’s communications manager.
The proposal would have closed the Montesano library and consolidated services into the Elma branch.
The board also unanimously approved a trial of Open Plus in the McCleary and Winlock branches for 12 months. Open Plus is a service provided by Bibliotheca. It places cameras in the building and card readers at the doors to let patrons use the library in what would normally be off-hours. Many fitness facilities have similar operations.
