Residents, Timberland Staff Share Perspectives at Library Meetings

After a pair of community meetings at the Winlock and Salkum libraries this week, local residents and Timberland Regional Library leaders came away with a better understanding of each others’ concerns — and several new ideas for addressing TRL’s budget issues without placing an undue burden on library patrons. 

“These are good meetings,” said Winlock resident Richard Roth, following the Wednesday discussion. “There seems to be a lot of people coming, and it will raise everybody’s consciousness. … I’m glad I came.”

Roth was one of many residents who met with Timberland District Manager Trisha Cronin, who spent all day in Winlock following her Tuesday spent in Salkum. Cronin was joined for part of the afternoon Wednesday by TRL Director Cheryl Heywood.

The meetings are part of a Community Chat series Cronin is holding throughout Lewis County’s libraries this winter, making herself available to address patrons’ questions and concerns. Heywood opted to join her Wednesday after Cronin got feedback in Salkum that attendees wanted the chance to address the director.

“People wanted to make sure that I heard what they were saying, so I shuffled around my schedule to come here today,” Heywood said. 

Timberland is starting 2019 with community outreach following a year that ended in controversy, after a Capital Facilities Proposal that would have closed a third of the system’s libraries was nixed by TRL’s board after strong public backlash. Further reporting about the secretive nature of the closure proposal’s creation — as well as the silencing of staff who tried to warn the public — led to many combative public meetings and a loss of trust in Timberland leadership. 

The meetings this week took a softened tone, with Timberland leadership and patrons exchanging questions and ideas — more akin to a brainstorming session than the highly-charged atmosphere of previous TRL meetings.

Locals seemed relieved to know none of Timberland’s libraries would be closing, and understanding of the fact that the system’s budget issues — it’s projected to run a deficit of more than $600,000 this year — may lead to painful choices.

“What libraries are you thinking about closing?” asked Gary Stelzner.

“None,” Heywood responded, clarifying that the board had voted against any closures. She added that staffing cuts may be a necessity.

Winlock is among the libraries facing the most immediate effects of TRL’s budget crunch. After its library manager left last year, Timberland opted not to include the position in the 2019 budget, and is exploring long-term staffing options, including a shared manager with Salkum. 

Timberland is also looking at its staffing and hours model at both Salkum and Winlock. An early version of a proposal drafted by TRL leaders would have closed each library for an extra day each week, but feedback provided this week may lead to a different outcome. 

“One of the good recommendations that I had from people today was that they would prefer to have slightly shorter (open hours each day) and keep that Wednesday open,” Cronin said. “I’m going to have to sit down with the current schedule and the current number of staffed hours and see if that’s workable. I have a feeling that it will be.”

Cronin said she would likely include that among several options presented to the board, noting that it would be “months” before any final decision is reached. 

According to Cronin, about 40 people showed up for the meeting in Salkum Tuesday, with 60 more attending in Winlock Wednesday. During a short period of time Wednesday afternoon, 10 or so people spent time around a table chatting with Cronin and Heywood. 

“It’s been like that since 10 (a.m.),” Cronin said.

The Timberland representatives also got strong feedback on the proposed Open+ model, which is currently on the verge of being implemented in McCleary, with Winlock slated to be next. Open+ would provide keycard access to the library during unstaffed hours, allowing residents to check out materials during an extended period of time each day.

While many TRL staff and board members have been excited about the model, which has been implemented in many other libraries across the country, Winlock residents made it clear they had deep reservations. 

“We’ve very leery about this keycard thing,” Roth said. “We’re concerned for security and for health too. … We’d rather see it closed than to use the keycard thing.”

Open+ is an opt-in system, but residents said they were worried that card holders might allow unauthorized people to follow them into the library, creating an environment in which guests could be exposed to potentially dangerous people in an unsupervised setting. Others noted that a visitor might suffer a health crisis while in the library alone, leaving them helpless. 

“There needs to be somebody with expertise here at all times the library is open,” Stelzner said. 

Cronin said those concerns had been heard loud and clear.

“What we’re hearing from people today is that people aren’t really interested in having that in their community,” she said. “That’s definitely something that we’ll take on board. … If people don’t want to have that in their community, that’s obviously huge.”

Meanwhile, one of the major themes of discussion was the Timberland budget, with many residents asking about the funding shortfalls that have caused so much angst. Heywood said she was impressed by locals’ “willingness to really understand the budget and to understand the funding sources, and their potential role in that.”

Heywood explained that TRL’s revenues are primarily composed of property taxes, which are capped at a 1 percent increase each year — a rate rising much slower than the system’s expenses. Timberland attempted a lid lift on the levy in 2009, which voters rejected. Some in Winlock urged them to try again.

“As far as I’m concerned, the taxes could be raised to provide adequate income to run the library in the way that it should be run,” Stelzner said, conceding: “I don’t know how the community would respond to that.”

Cronin noted that the measure would need to earn a majority in all five counties of Timberland’s region to be approved, and Stelzner said a campaign of letters to the editor in local newspapers could help drum up support. 

“You pay your taxes and you don’t think about it much,” Roth said. “You think the library’s always going to be there. … We had no idea that we were underfunded the amount that we are. We learned a lot today.”

Heywood noted other ways the libraries could bring in support, from endowments to estate gifts to Friends of the Library groups. Several attendees expressed interest in joining the Winlock Friends group once the meeting wrapped up. 

Despite the enthusiasm to work together, some residents still pushed back against potential hours and staff cutbacks. 

“Reducing hours or days of operation will add to general confusion and instability, and will disproportionately reduce library utilization, which will in turn deteriorate analytics and the library’s long term prognosis,” Winlock resident Jeff Landrum wrote in a follow-up email after the meeting. “Our library and our librarians are the most valuable resource we have in this community. Please don’t allow them to be taken away from us.”