KLICKITAT CO. — For their handling of a strategic plan update, both groups that help support libraries in White Salmon and Goldendale have delivered no confidence votes in the Fort Vancouver Regional Library (FVRL) District’s Board of Trustees.
On Jan. 26, as previously reported by Columbia Gorge News, the board removed “equitable access” from a plan designed to guide network-wide growth and decision making through 2030, among other changes. Instead of adopting recommendations based on a nine-month consulting process, which included listening sessions across the four-county district, three focus groups with staff and a survey with nearly 2,000 responses, the board went with language introduced by Trustee Irina Kakorina during the meeting.
Neither the public nor the board had reviewed the final text beforehand. There was also a revised option up for consideration that, following suggestions from trustees, altered the definition of intellectual freedom and replaced “equitable” with “fair and inclusive” access.
Kakorina’s proposal didn’t address intellectual freedom, but the district’s new guiding mission is as follows: “We open doors and provide access to literacy and learning for all, creating a foundation for stronger, more united communities.”
“The process was unprofessional and railroaded to a vote. The introduction of ‘new language’ at the last minute disregarded all the work of a comprehensive and expensive study,” reads a joint statement from Beth Harkenrider and Melinda Heindel. “After much thought and discussion, we chose to express our lack of confidence in the process, in hopes that the irregularities would render the vote not valid.”
Friends of the White Salmon Valley Community Library, where Harkenrider serves as president and Heindel as recording secretary, unanimously approved a vote of no confidence in early February, and their counterpart in Goldendale followed suit during a March 18 meeting. Each group objected to the process and accepted language.
Friends of the Library groups are volunteers who partner with the FVRL Foundation, an independent nonprofit that helps bolster projects and programming for the district’s half a million patrons.
Trustee Olga Hodges, who was appointed to represent Klickitat County and voted in favor of Kakorina’s proposal, declined a request to comment.
“We have just as much right to what is available in the library district as Vancouver,” said Christy Mattson, president of the Goldendale group. “We have concerns about whether there will be equitable access for all the small libraries in the future.”
Mattson added that members felt some trustees had an inaccurate understanding of the term, which aims to provide support based on individual need rather than equal resources to everyone. Friends groups in Battle Ground, Castle Park, Vancouver and Yacolt have also issued no confidence votes, and several others are still weighing the action, FVRL Foundation President Jenny Wilkerson confirmed.
Trustees had originally planned to decide on the strategic plan language in December, but disagreement and dozens of public comments prompted them to push the timeline back until January. That meeting lasted over four hours and ended with the resignation of Trustee Mary Williams, who strongly advocated for the original recommendations, as did the majority of those who testified.
Trustee Mary Ann Duncan-Cole, the appointee for Skamania County who also voted for Kakorina’s proposal, also stepped down three days later, citing health reasons.
Legal counsel present at the January session said the trustees operated in “a gray area” where no legal recourse was possible, according to Harkenrider and Heindel.
“We hope that the [trustees] will act in a way that is truly representative of the patrons they serve and not put their personal views above the people they represent. We want them to pay attention to the public comments and respond to them,” Harkenrider and Heindel wrote. “This was a way to express support for the original language without condemning specific trustees, calling attention to the dysfunction of the voting process.”
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