Library accountability is an unavoidable reality

The recent spotlight on the contents of juvenile books in the Samuels Public Library (SPL), including those containing pornography, has brought out a spate of letters to the editor, social media posts, and many speakers at the June 6 Warren County Board of Supervisors (BOS)meeting.

According to information that is on the SPL website, the BOS funded the library building, and the BOS provided 82% of the 2022 budget. To put it bluntly, there would be no SPL without the financial support of Warren County taxpayers. So, we may ask: Is SPL independent?

Clearly, it is not, despite being a private non-profit corporation with its own governing Board of Trustees and employees, as it receives most of its funding from the Warren County taxpayer.

Is SPL accountable to the taxpayer that pays its bills? Until last night’s BOS meeting, that may have been an open question. However, the rapidity with which this controversy bypassed the SPL Board of Trustees and ascended straight to the BOS indicates a universal understanding that it must be, even if it doesn’t seem to perceive it that way.

Despite utter reliance on public dollars, SPL’s governance has no taxpayer involvement. The real legal name of Samuels Public Library is actually Samuels Library, Inc. (SLI), and SPL is known as a dba: “doing business as.” SLI is a private corporation doing business as a public library. Furthermore, like private corporations everywhere, its trustees elect their own successors and hire their own director. There is no taxpayer involvement. Dwell on that. New members of SLI’s Board of Trustees are elected by … the existing members of its Board of Trustees.

Private corporations are, of course, entitled to manage their own affairs, generally speaking. But when the private corporation has an explicit charter to perform a public service, resides in a building paid for with public money, and it extends its hand to the BOS for a million dollars of public money every year, the insulating effect of this arrangement needs to be closely examined.

This presents a further problem when SLI’s Board of Trustees is an insular group with largely the same outlook and hires a simpatico Director. The representation that should accompany the taxation is largely obscured when taxpayer money is annually granted to the private non-profit SLI, wherein it operates the library “independently” without the need to be responsive to taxpayer input.

A once-per-year take-it-or-leave-it proposition from SLI for either shuttering the entire library or keeping it operating is grossly inadequate. The BOS needs finer-grained tools to be able to represent their taxpayer voters in matters concerning the library operation.

Fortunately, the present controversy has come before us just as the BOS happens to be in decision-making mode about SLI’s current budget proposal. SLI would be wise to consider a change of strategy. Rather than fostering a frenzied public outcry with hyperbole about book banning, censorship, religious fanaticism, and spreading fear of a library closure, SLI may consider adopting a stance commensurate with their open hand.

If SLI genuinely values all library patrons, it can make a good-faith effort to take the initiative and propose potential solutions. They can be working right now to help the BOS find a path to funding the library without violating a substantial number of constituents’ wishes not to acquire pornography aimed toward children. In the meantime, the BOS has to make a decision, and we can all hope they have the wherewithal to avoid SLI’s all-or-nothing trap and find a solution that keeps the library fully funded.

Richard Jamieson
Warren County