Whitefish, county at odds over divvying up library items

Flathead County Library Board members last week reiterated their support for a staff-developed plan to close the Whitefish Branch Library, acknowledging there are differing opinions about who gets what in the split.

The board voted unanimously to close the Whitefish library on June 18 and remove all county-owned materials to allow the city of Whitefish to get its own library up and running by July 1.

In November 2010 the Whitefish City Council voted to terminate the interlocal agreement that allowed the county to use a city-owned building and operate a branch library in Whitefish, ending more than a year of strife between Whitefish library supporters and the county Library Board and managers. Whitefish intends to collect tax revenue and operate an independent city library.

 County Library Board member Connie Leistiko said county library officials and Whitefish library supporters have different goals for the transition from a branch library to a city library.

“Their objective is to start a new library,” she said. “Ours is to do as much as we can before we vacate.”

Leistiko expressed some concern about those differing objectives.

“We have nothing per se to get from them,” she said. “They’re continuing to ask what we’re going to leave. And they want everything.”

Fellow board member Michael Morton said it’s the Library Board and staff’s responsibility to keep the books that are valuable to the county library collection.

“For someone to say we can’t move a book is ridiculous,” Morton said.

For several months, representatives of the two entities have been meeting about the transition, Leistiko said. And, she said, every time the conversation turns to the relocation plan, an impasse occurs.

“They don’t want us to take out one book and we’ve told them that’s not the case,” she said.

The county Library Board has directed library employees to determine where every item now in the Whitefish library will end up, Leistiko said.

The Whitefish library holds about 35,000 items, according to library Director Kim Crowley. That includes books, magazines, newspapers, CDs, DVDs, tapes and audio books.

At last week’s board meeting, Leistiko shared details of a “discussion document” she was given by a group of Whitefish library supporters who are negotiating the library assets.

That group offered four options for the Whitefish library assets, she said. Those are:

n Leave all Whitefish library assets in place;

n Transfer library assets to the new Whitefish Community Library in exchange for library services to county residents who live outside Whitefish city limits but in the near vicinity of Whitefish and who won’t be paying city taxes to support the city library;

n Allocate an additional 800 volumes to the Whitefish library or sell them to the city at a nominal cost;

n Agree that as a condition of leaving all assets in Whitefish, if the Whitefish Community Library ceases to exist, all those assets be transferred back to the county library system.

“I’m not prepared to recommend any of those,” Leistiko said.

Crowley and Leistiko estimated about half of the items now in Whitefish will remain there once the county completes its assessment and relocation effort.

“There will be a great number of books left there,” Leistiko said.

The staff plan is to “gradually remove items” from the library during April, May and June, Crowley said.

Library employees are assigning materials one of three classifications, Crowley said — low, medium and high. Items in the high category will be relocated to one of the other county libraries and items in the other two classifications will be individually evaluated to determine what to do with the item.

Items not pegged for transfer to another county library could be donated to the Whitefish Community Library, to another library such as a school library, to the Friends of the Library for resale, or could be discarded. Generally books are discarded only when they become too damaged for regular use or if the book is too outdated to be of use, such as a reference manual that has been replaced by a newer version of the same book, Crowley said.

Library workers already have determined most audio books and DVDs will be placed in one of the other county libraries because of their popularity.

Back issues of magazines and newspapers will remain in Whitefish.

All books donated to the Whitefish library by Whitefish residents as a memorial or a gift will remain in Whitefish, Leistiko said. Likewise, books and other items purchased by the Whitefish Community Center for the library will stay in Whitefish, as will books that were part of the collection of the old Whitefish city library prior to 1976 when the Whitefish library became part of the county library system.

Books that the county library has multiple copies of and doesn’t need in another library will be given to the city of Whitefish for the library as well, Crowley said.

Leistiko also shared her concerns about the disagreement between the two groups about what day the county will stop providing library services in Whitefish.

There’s simply no way for the county to operate through June 30 and vacate the building by July 1, she said. She acknowledged there will be some inconvenience to Whitefish residents for the final 12 days of June.

“But we didn’t terminate the agreement,” Leistiko stressed. “Whitefish did.”

Board member Laura Long agreed, saying “we can’t operate until midnight and then poof, we’re gone. No reasonable person would say that.”

The Whitefish supporters also have asked that a portion of the county library depreciation fund be given to them.

“We’ve said ‘no way,’” Leistiko said.

Long agreed with Leistiko about the depreciation fund.

“I’m struggling with their inability or refusal to acknowledge things like they deserve a piece of the depreciation fund,” Long said. “There’s no basis for that position. That’s county money. The entitlement issue has been interesting and frustrating.”

Neither Whitefish library committee spokesman Michael Collins nor Whitefish Mayor Mike Jenson could  be reached for comment.

Reporter Shelley Ridenour may be reached at 758-4439 or by email at sridenour@dailyinterlake.com.