A good friend of mine has politely reminded me I haven't blogged in a while, so here I am, on Memorial Day, to mourn the loss of our county libraries. Not that I don't think they'll reopen at some time in the future; it's just that... well, being a counter-phobic six on the Enneagram, I see all sides of the story. They ran out of money. Taxpayers don't want to pay any more property taxes. The government is tired of bailing out a state which refuses to charge sales tax. Besides that, the O&C deal they had with the timber industry was not renewed. (Chopping down trees = books, to put it simply). The developers laughed all the way to the bank when they collected on the bonds to build these two libraries within the past four years.
The Main Library in Medford, on the top, was finished about three years ago. This place is state-of-the-art, and the dream library for me to research newspapers from all over the country for those Black Bear Diner menus. On the bottom is my local branch, the Talent Library. They finished it about three months ago and promptly closed it due to a "lack of funding." Thirteen other libraries (read, community centers, places of mental enrichment) around the county were dealt the same blow.
Jackson County voted down a 66¢ per $1,000 of assessed property last November, the amount of approximately $10 extra per month of property taxes, and the majority of Jackson County (meaning about 54%), didn't want to go for it.
A bunch of us spoke at the hearing last January, and they scheduled another referendum for May 15. It was defeated again!
When I first moved here, the Main Library was being built, and I reveled in the fact that I lived in a place that would build such a glorious library. Now I'm feeling like, "How can I live in a county that has this many really stupid people living in it?"
So, the challenge is to find a way to fund the libraries without hitting up the property owners for more money. I'm thinking a 2-3% sales tax would do it, but I suppose the powers-that-be will have to exhaust all the very silliest ideas before deciding on something that actually works.
Meanwhile, I've discovered that the glorious Main Library, with its state-of-the-art reference section, is still open as long as you're a Rogue Community College student. Registration is tomorrow. I have my eye on a pottery course I've been wanting to take for years.
