Since it opened two years ago, the kiosk at the Toledo Community Library has seen the number of checkouts soar past numbers at other kiosks, which are open more hours.
Timberland checkouts at the Toledo kiosk in 2015 were 3,806.
Volunteers staffing the library keep it open 23 hours a week. A book club meets monthly. The Reptile Man has visited twice, drawing large crowds eager to see snakes, lizards and other reptiles.
Olympia’s Sandra Crowell, one of my critique group partners and author of “The Land Called Lewis: A History of Lewis County, Washington,” will give a presentation at 7 p.m. Sept. 28. On Nov. 3 at 6 p.m., Maggie Stuckey, of Portland, author of “Soup Night: Recipes for Creating Community around a Pot of Soup,” will share heartwarming stories of how enjoying a meal together brings people closer.
Earlier this month, Pat Caldwell, who owns the library building with her husband, Bill, sat down with Timberland Regional Library Director Cheryl Heywood to sign a new two-year renewal agreement for the kiosk.
“She always knows I’m going to ask: So do we get to have a full-service library?” Caldwell said, noting that at one point Timberland officials questioned the city’s support for a library. This month, Mayor Steve Dobosh and Michelle Whitten, Toledo city manager, attended the meeting to voice their support.
The city is willing to take over ownership of the building, but the Caldwells don’t want to donate it without a commitment to have a library there. Meanwhile, the couple pay the property taxes and maintain the former pharmacy building.
“We just kind of would like to not have it up in the air forever,” Caldwell said. “We’re perfectly fine with what it’s doing now, but we haven’t lost that vision.”
Heywood agreed to present Toledo’s request for a library and the kiosk statistics to the TRL Facilities Committee at its next quarterly meeting Oct. 18, said Jeff Kleingartner, Timberland’s communications manager, who also attended the meeting.
However, he said a Toledo library would cost more than $100,000 a year for staff, library collections, and technology and equipment, “while TRL receives approximately $18,000 each year in property tax income from Toledo residents.”
Of course, that figure doesn’t include those of us living outside the city limits who have paid library property taxes for decades. Altogether, people living in the Toledo School District pay $166,022 a year for library service ($148,000 more than the $18,000 paid by city residents).
We were also told that Morton, which has a kiosk in the Centralia College East building, has waited much longer for a full-service library, so I asked for an update.
Kleingartner responded.
“As for Morton, Mayor Dan Mortensen shared an update from both him and the Morton City Council — ‘they like the library system to remain as is. We just don’t have the funds to commit to a facility at this time.’”
But Toledo is ready, willing and able. So TRL, please just say “yes.”
Fair Accident Update
Toledo’s Jake Morgan remains at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle with more surgery scheduled to reconstruct his face after he and his daughter were injured by a runaway horse and carriage at the Southwest Washington Fair. His 4-year-old daughter, Helen, was released from the hospital a week ago.
An account has been set up at the Toledo Flying K Gas Mart to help family members cover fuel costs for daily hospital trips, and silent auction items are being collected for a Sept. 30 spaghetti feed fundraiser at Toledo High School.
To donate auction items, contact Brandie Devine at (360) 880-7331. To provide food or supplies for the spaghetti feed, contact Catrina Mathis at (360) 703-1715 or Cara Buswell at (206) 303-9472 or (360) 864-4291.
“We just want to thank everyone for their support, thoughts and prayers,” Morgan said. “Everyone has been awesome.”
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Julie McDonald, a personal historian from Toledo, may be reached at memoirs@chaptersoflife.com.
