Sean C. Morgan
Sweet Home Public Library will reopen Saturday after the Sept. 16 approval of a new operating levy by Sweet Home voters.
“I just want to go in there and smell the air,” Library Director Leona McCann said Thursday. She had not yet had a chance to go back into the library but recalled fondly the smell of books. “Thanks a lot, and I appreciate your (the voters) shouting. I think they shouted very loudly that library services were important to the town.
“The staff is exuberant about coming back also. We missed summer reading, but we’re already planning next year’s.
“A lot of people from Sweet Home have gone to Lebanon and bought library cards over there. Now they can come home, come on back.”
“I’d echo Leona’s comments,” City Manager Craig Martin said. “I thank the community for the show of support, especially with the 70 percent ‘yes.’ I think it really shows the community values having library services. I think it shows it’s important to the people of the community. Coupled with the 60-percent turnout, the message was clear this time.”
The levy passed 1,389, 72.08 percent, in favor and 538, 27.92 percent, against. Of registered voters, 59.12 percent turned out to vote.
“We appreciate all the hard work,” McCann said of the many who helped promote the levy.
“Especially the political action committee,” Martin said. “There’s about 20 people that served on the political action committee. Each one engaged many resources in the community.”
People shows up at phone banks to encourage voters to cast a ballot after being asked by “a friend of a friend,” Martin said.
“I would also like to thank the Friends (of the Library) for their support of the library,” McCann said. The Friends provided $1,000 toward helping reopen the library. That money will be used for rewiring and a magazine database.
Sweet Home Public Library had been closed since May after a request for a levy renewal failed. The library shut down before the end of the fiscal year, June 30, because it had run short of money during that funding cycle.
Sweet Home voters approved levies in March and May, but in both cases, less than 50 percent of Sweet Home voters participated disqualifying the election. Sweet Home voters turned down the levy in November’s general election. The city had asked for an estimated tax levy of 79 cents per $1,000 in November and March then 69 cents in May.
The city reduced the requested amount to an estimated rate of 60 cents for last week’s election. The levy begins with the 2003-04 fiscal year, which started on July 1, with $159,764 in taxes levied. That will increase by 3 percent per year until the 2006-07 fiscal year when the city will levy $174,579 for the library.
The levy will fund the library at the same number of employees and hours. It does include an increase from about 48 cents per $1,000 to pay higher costs and build up an ending fund balance, which serves as a cash carryover from year to year and is used to fund library operations from July to the end of November when tax revenues are available.
The ending fund balance is estimated at $11,879 the first year building to $47,516 in the fourth year of the levy.
Actual rates may vary depending on property values, and the total amount collected depends on Measure Five compression effects and how much delinquency there is in tax payments, Finance Director Pat Gray said.
The city is recalling the four employees laid off with the closure of the library. McCann has accepted the offer. Other employees offered the job include Sandy Leonard, Dyan Brown and Karen Johnson.
The city is funding library operations for about two months with cash from the general fund, which will be backfilled by the levy at the end of November.