|
Why don't they talk to each other?
"What we have here is a failure to communicate."
While that may be funny when it's Paul Newman mocking the warden in Cool Hand Luke, it seems sad when we're talking about book-reading community members who can't seem to get along where the Jackson County Library is concerned.
Carey King and I decided we should attend last week's meeting of the library board, even though there were three other important public meetings on that same Tuesday evening (Nov. 16). We'd heard rumblings that members of Friends of the Library planned to attend to discuss fund-raising for the proposed new library.
Members of the Friends' group said they felt "ambushed" when Jackson County Librarian Michael Cartwright turned the library board's attention to the fact that the Friends had not contributed any money to the local library since February.
That may have been surprising to President Linda Young and the six or so members of Friends who attended the meeting, but it seemed pretty straightforward to us. Most meetings we cover, whether commissioners, town boards or Tuckaseigee Water and Sewer Authority, have some degree of conflict over what is the best way to spend a finite amount of money.
What amazed us, as reporters, was the uproar that ensued when the conversation turned to the matter of fund-raising for the new library. No one present – journalists excluded – seemed to have a clue as to what action county leaders had taken less than two months before when they agreed to purchase a Jackson Plaza site for a library and adopted a timeline outlining the steps required to turn vision into reality. That information was not only reported in The Sylva Herald when commissioners acted in September and early October, but was reiterated in an Oct. 14 letter to the editor.
The temptation for a reporter at such times is to put down the pencil, take a deep breath, and say – very loudly – "Don't any of you read the newspaper?"
Confusion reigned over exactly how much money must be raised for a new library and exactly who is supposed to spearhead the raising of those funds. Members of Friends, who said they had received their information from Cartwright, said they didn't appreciate being told they had to raise $2.5 or so million to help build a new library. Library board members weren't sure about any of it either.
Surprisingly, no one remembered that the timeline passed by county leaders charged that very body – the Jackson County Library Board – with appointing two committees. One committee, to be led by grant-writer Art Ellick, was to concentrate on fund-raising, and the other, led by architect Odell Thompson, was to concentrate on a design for the new space. Both were to include all interested groups – Friends of the Library, Build Our Library Downtown and Fontana Regional Library staff. And the timeline makes no mention of a specific dollar amount that must be raised.
Yet at the library board meeting, even though Cartwright quoted from the aforementioned timeline, no one seemed aware of this public information. And the only committee that was appointed was a delegation of library board members and Friends who will attend commissioners' Dec. 14 meeting to find out what it is that they are all supposed to do.
According to Cartwright, appointing that delegation satisfies the charge given to the library board by commissioners to appoint committees.
It made me doubt my own memory. I mean, just because I was at the commissioners' meeting where the timeline was adopted, and just because I didn't remember hearing that Friends of the Library would be required to raise more than $2 million or there would be no new library, did that mean all the people at the meeting were wrong?
So I called Commissioners' Chairman Stacy Buchanan and county Manager Ken Westmoreland to check my recollections against theirs.
Buchanan said exactly what's reported above and in our front page news story with regard to the timeline, and said it was his understanding that Westmoreland had met with the various groups and communicated that information to them.
Westmoreland confirmed that he had done so. And, when he kept receiving e-mails that convinced him of widespread community confusion, Westmoreland said he met with Cartwright and explained the plan again.
When asked if he told library board members they were to appoint two committees, Westmoreland replied, "Sure."
As to a dollar amount, Westmoreland said one was never mentioned.
"There was no talk of a dollar amount," he said Monday. "We don't know yet."
According to Buchanan, leaving out a price tag in the timeline was intentional.
"When a final library design is adopted in 2007, then we'll look at how much money we still need and financing options," Buchanan said Monday.
When I shared that information with library board Chairman Howard Allman Monday afternoon, he seemed surprised.
"That's completely new to me," Allman said.
Perhaps all this conflict and contention is the legacy of the acrimonious debate that surrounded 2003 plans to build a joint library with Southwestern Community College on the SCC campus. Or maybe it's a holdover from disagreement about the three downtown locations – Jackson Plaza, the old Sylva School site in Mark Watson Park, the Hooper property near Bicentennial Park – that were debated this past spring and summer.
Whatever the reason, it's time for it all to stop. Libraries are about community, and their role has long been one of disseminating knowledge and goodwill. Every member of Friends, every member of BOLD and every member of the library board likely has the goal of a vital and viable new library for Sylva uppermost in their minds.
That shared purpose will not be reached without a cooperative journey.
|
