Macon County has approved a new version of the Fontana Regional Library interlocal agreement that contains changes made by all three counties in the system. This marks the end of almost two years of controversy over the library agreement, libraries themselves and the merits of a regional library system. 

“As liaison to the library, at this time I’d like to make a recommendation for the board to enter into contract with FRL interlocal agreement,” said Commissioner Danny Antoine during the Nov. 12 commission meeting. “Jackson County passed it, Swain County passed it, so if there’s no discussion on it, I’d like to make a motion to enter into that agreement.” 

Antoine was the first commissioner to raise issues with the library back in March 2023, when he floated the idea of withdrawing Macon County from the Fontana Regional Library system over concerns with books containing LGBTQ content or themes.

“There are books that we have in our library system that are just absolutely unacceptable and beyond reprehensible to even speak of what’s inside these books,” Antoine said at the time. “This is pornographic material. A child cannot walk into an adult X-rated store and just go get whatever they want. However, the library seems to be one place in America where any child can check out these books without parental consent.” 

Commissioner Antoine later said at a March 2023 meeting that he was working on pulling Macon County out of the system.

“For those of you who have stated about pulling out of the Fontana Regional System, believe me, I’m completely on board with that,” Antoine said. “It’s not a simple process. It is a hard process that we’re definitely working super hard on, trying to figure out how to do this the best way because you can’t just pull out of that system and leave the library hanging by itself. We have to have a system in place to be able to make sure that the library is functioning correctly.”

But that process turned out to be quite complicated and likely very expensive. So, Antoine, and members of the public with similar concerns, turned to the FRL interlocal agreement that governs the regional library system.

Fontana Regional Library formed in 1944 when the Tennessee Valley Authority sponsored a regional bookmobile to visit the most remote areas of Jackson, Macon and Swain counties.

Today, the system offers full library services to rural counties that might not otherwise be able to fund them. By combining cataloging, human resources, finance departments and information technology services for libraries in the three counties, it is cheaper for each county than if they were to provide for each of those departments individually. The regional agreement is renewed every 10 years and can be dissolved or withdrawn from at any time.

In November 2023, Macon County Commissioners released a set of recommended changes to the FRL agreement.

Almost a year later, in August 2024, the Jackson County Commission approved a new version of the FRL interlocal agreement that contained some significant changes to the revision previously put forth by Macon County. Swain County approved the same version as Jackson.

In the FRL’s purpose statement, Macon County had proposed that the statement end with, “To this end, the FRL shall operate the county libraries and branches of the participating local government units in a socially and politically neutral manner.” 

This proved to be a sticking point for commissioners and attorneys.

“There’s been some discussion with the board and in public comment as to what this means,” Kubis told Jackson commissioners back in January. “Certainly, whatever it does mean, it means that commissioners are now going to be in a position to determine whether or not libraries are acting in accordance with the socially and politically neutral manner language.”

The document approved by Jackson and Swain ends the purpose statement with, “To this end, the FRL shall operate the county libraries and branches of the participating local government units in accordance with governing statutory authority, North Carolina law and this Agreement.” 

The new document does keep intact the change Macon Commissioners made last year to put the authority to appoint members to the Fontana Regional library Board in the hands of county commissioners. The document does say that county commissioners “may” select from recommendations made by their respective County Library Board, though it is not required. This change was originally recommended by county managers in August 2023.

However, the new document does not contain a rule proposed by Macon County that said, “any time that a majority of the commissioners determine that a library trustee from their county has failed to abide by the library’s by-laws and policies, they may be removed by the commissioners from that county.” 

While the new document does stipulate that the library board will hold 30-minute public comment sessions during its meeting with three minutes allowed per speaker, and more time permitted by the board’s discretion, it does not include the statement Macon County had proposed that said “the public shall be permitted to ask questions for clarification directly through the chair, who shall attempt to answer to the best of his or her ability.” 

This was an important point for multiple Jackson commissioners.

“In all my meetings and boards I’ve ever been on, that’s never happened,” said Jackson County Commissioner Mark Jones. “You can always go after a meeting and speak to a person one on one, the chair and any other member of any issue.” 

“I don’t think any of the commissioners that showed up wanted to have response from the chairman,” said Smith. “Any time the board, especially the chairman responds to public comment, you’re likely to inflame and cause more problems and we spoke about that when we were there.” 

The new agreement reinstates FRL as a party in resolving disagreements related to the document, alongside commissioners from each county. The Macon proposal had called for commissioners and their attorneys to address any issues without FRL.

While the Macon proposal stipulated that if a county were to withdraw from the FRL system, it would keep all the assets in the county library, the new proposal stipulates that “furniture and fixtures purchased by the Friends of the Library within the withdrawing county will remain with their respective library, and books and audiovisual materials will also remain with each library.”

However, “assets located in the local library facility that were purchased by Fontana Regional Library with Fontana Regional Library funds and intended for Fontana Regional Library regional support services will remain assets of Fontana Regional Library.”

The new agreement will stand for 10 years, at which time it will be up for review.