Larry Griffin
lgriffin@thesmokymountaintimes.com
A new proposed change to the rules for appointing members to the board of the three-county Fontana Regional Library Board of Trustees could put more power in the county commissioners’ hands.
A resolution signed by the managers of the three counties under the umbrella of the Fontana Regional Library – Swain, Macon and Jackson – posits that the commissioners would be better suited to approve new Board of Trustees members as opposed to the local county library boards, as had been done previously.
“We believe that this direct connection between the local governments who are responsible for creating and funding the multi-county library system and the policymaking body for that system will be more reflective of the elected bodies, improve communications and make the service more responsive to all of our citizens,” the letter, signed by Swain County Manager Kevin King, Macon County Manager Derek C. Roland, and Jackson County Manager Don Adams, reads.
The agreement says all three counties’ boards of commissioners must approve the change for it to go into effect. This is being considered as part of the 10-year review of the agreement between the three counties to link their libraries together.
The Fontana Regional Library Board of Trustees is responsible for developing policies for the “administration and operation” of the library.
Swain County has not been a part of the national debate about the content of books in libraries, but neighboring Macon County has seen flashes of controversy for months.
There, some local residents and one commissioner have raised objections to the content of some books, some related to LGBTQ+ issues, that they claim are not suitable for children. Some commissioners there have moved to restrict what minors can access at the library because of that.
A commission meeting in April in Macon County saw the commissioners contemplating leaving the library system over the issue.
At Tuesday night’s Swain County Commission meeting, Aug. 15, members of the library board appeared to voice their hopes that the commissioners wouldn’t enact drastic changes.
Local board president Ellen Snodgrass said the local board has “knowledgeable experience” about running the library. She said it would be best to keep the directions coming from fellow board members, rather than the county commissioners appointing someone completely outside the library system.
“The letter says you’ll be making appointments, but it does not say they have to come from the local board,” she said, adding that appointing people with no experience to the regional board could have dire consequences.
However, during Tuesday’s meeting, the commissioners mostly seemed baffled as to why they’d need to change a thing.
Commissioner Roger Parsons said he “believed in keeping it simple,” but asked, “If it’s not broke, why fix it?”
“I feel like we are feeling pressure from two other counties to change what has been working for us, so that’s a little bit of my pushback,” Parsons said. “But we want to be cooperative as we can with the other two counties to make the system work, but I don’t want to feel like something’s being pushed down our throats. So, I think we should have Mr. King go back to the other county managers and say, ‘I kind of like it the way it is.’”
Parsons said if other counties wanted to change how the Board of Trustees appointments work, “they can initiate change by appointing people to the library board over time.”
Commissioner Phillip Carson said he thought it would likely be better to keep their board appointments to people who “have some experience,” while Commission Chairman Kevin Seagle said he thought the local board was doing “a great job” as is.
King said he knew about the controversies that had happened in Macon and said he didn’t know why the other counties were signing onto the prospective changes to the three-county system.
“I suspect Jackson County’s reason is the same as ours,” he said. He added that he knew some people “did not want to be in the regional system,” likely referring to the controversy in Macon County where some residents wanted to opt out of the Fontana Regional Library System over the inclusion of the books, they deemed inappropriate.
But, King said, in his opinion, it would be a poor choice to dissolve the relationship between the three counties for the library system.
Marianna Black Library Head Librarian Jeff Delfield noted that the issue was a complicated one because of the three counties’ vastly different makeups – Swain only has one library to manage, while Jackson has two and Macon has three, so things in Swain are “less complicated.”
“It’s working just fine,” Delfield said.
Delfield said the local library board was “to be honest, not so much an appointment as a volunteer position, or ‘voluntold.’”
“Running against each other has not been an issue here,” he said.
The commissioners did not vote on the matter on Tuesday, but agreed to look at the issue further and vote on it in September when the 10-year agreement for all three counties is ready to be finalized, according to King.
Asked after the meeting whether the county had any concerns about the material available in the Marianna Black Library, King said they didn’t. “There is no issues with the materials from our standpoint in our library.”