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Officials rescind library referendum
By Lynn Hotaling
Almost exactly two months after they decided to place the question of where to locate a new county library on the November ballot, Jackson County Commissioners Tuesday (March 16) rescinded that action.
Commissioners’ Chairman Stacy Buchanan’s motion to nullify referendum plans commissioners made Jan. 13 was approved unanimously. Buchanan’s motion dropping the ballot initiative directed a recently-established task force to look for a downtown Sylva site for a new library and stated that commissioners would send a letter to Southwestern Community College officials indicating the community college should proceed with its plans for a new library on the SCC campus.
“Since we’ve started having meetings, (the library issue) doesn’t seem to be divisive any more,” Buchanan said last week.
Tuesday’s commissioners’ action was not unexpected, given information Buchanan presented during a Feb. 26 meeting of the committee made up of Jackson County and town of Sylva officials established to study the library dilemma.
State election officials denied Jackson County’s request for a ballot initiative to determine a library site, Buchanan told the committee last month.
Without the time constraint of a November deadline, committee members decided to update a 1999 library space-needs study before proceeding further.
Tuesday’s action by county commissioners will likely put to rest controversy that has simmered since an earlier task force (made up of SCC and Fontana Regional Library personnel) recommended commissioners endorse a shared Jackson County/SCC library to be constructed on the SCC campus.
During a May 22 public hearing, 33 of 36 speakers spoke against moving the public library from Sylva to SCC, and some 2,700 county residents signed a petition in favor of keeping the library downtown.
Sylva’s town board members went on record in opposition to the proposed library move.
The current library task force is composed of Commissioners’ Chairman Buchanan, Commissioner Joe Cowan, Sylva Mayor Brenda Oliver, town board member Maurice Moody, Jackson County Manager Ken Westmoreland and Sylva Manager Richard McHargue.
Cowan serves as chairman of the group.
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