Jackson County approves new library agreement
The new version of the Fontana Regional Library adopted by Jackson County mirrors some changes already put forth in Macon County. File photo
The Jackson County Commission has approved a new version of the Fontana Regional Library interlocal agreement that contains some significant changes to the revisions previously put forth by Macon County.
“It’s not a win for everyone, it’s not a loss for everyone,” said Jackson County Commission Chairman Mark Letson. “It’s meeting in the middle to try and give the best for everybody in our county and surrounding counties.”
The process toward revising the interlocal agreement that governs the Fontana Regional Library system has been ongoing for more than a year. What started with complaints about certain books in circulation at FRL, has turned into a lengthy look at how the FRL functions and an attempt to rewrite some of its rules.
The agreement that binds the Fontana Regional Library — the library system that operates in Jackson, Macon and Swain counties — came up for its 10-year review last year. The Macon County Commission passed a set of proposed changes to the document in November.
However, in January of this year, after considering the changes Macon County had proposed, the Jackson County Commission decided they could not approve the document with the proposed revisions. Rather, Jackson commissioners set out to make adjustments of their own.
After some slow, unsuccessful back and forth with the board attorney, Jackson Commissioner John Smith proposed a joint meeting with commissioners from all three counties, as well as their respective county managers and attorneys. In order to keep this meeting from being a public meeting that would require proper noticing and be open to members of the public, each commission sent just two commissioners, keeping any board from forming a quorum.
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The document presented to the Jackson County Commission at its Aug. 20 meeting was a result of those joint meetings, even though the cooperation between counties was not complete.
“We initially began working with or attempting to work with all of the members of the original adopted interlocal agreement, so that included ourselves and Macon and Swain and Fontana Regional [Library],” said Board Attorney John Kubis. “That process sort of broke down a little bit where it was primarily us working with Swain and Fontana Regional for the completion, what ultimately wound up to be the completed draft.”
Swain Commissioners also reviewed and approved the proposed changes to the FRL agreement at their Aug. 20 meeting. Macon County Commissioners have not yet reviewed the proposed changes in public meeting and the agenda has not yet been released for the commission’s September meeting.
Tracy Fitzmaurice, director of the Fontana Regional Library system said she did not have comments on the proposed changes as the FRL Governing Board has not yet met to review the document.
All four parties — Jackson, Macon, Swain commissions and the Fontana Regional Library — would have to approve the proposed changes before they can replace the current FRL interlocal agreement.
“The proposed agreement is the result of a joint meeting that was had between the counties and Fontana Regional Library and the intent of that meeting was to produce an effective document that complies with North Carolina law and administrative code,” said Kubis. “It is therefore an enforceable document which is the goal with any agreement. The other goal was for it to be in keeping with the spirit and mission of the original agreement and that’s to allow for the continued public access to shared resources for their community needs.”
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.
The document approved by Jackson and Swain counties contains several changes from that which was put forth by Macon County last year.
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 end 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.
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 meeting and boards I’ve ever been on, that’s never happened,” said 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 proposed that commissioners and their attorneys address any issues without FRL.
While the Macon proposal stipulated that if a county were to withdraw from the FRL system, they 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 proposal will not go into effect until and unless it is approved by both FRL and the Macon County Commission.
