BOISE, Idaho — After months of petitions and public testimony, the Ada County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to not place the dissolution of the Meridian Library District on the ballot in November.
The petition process was started by a group called the Concerned Citizens of Meridian (CCoM). Their grievances were with some materials in the library they consider to be inappropriate for children. They also took issue with how the library district heard their concerns. The petition, which needed fifty signatures, was accepted by the Ada County Board of Commissioners back in February.
If the board had accepted the petition, the decision to dissolve the public library would have been put to vote in the November general election. CCoM said their goal was to dissolve the library district with this petition, then reinstate it with a similar petition with the hope that the library's board of trustees would be changed to reflect better, what they say are, "ideals of the community."
The library district said that process would be impossible because the district would have to sell off all of its assets after being dissolved, leaving nothing to recreate the library district.
The decision comes nine days after the Board held public testimony to hear public input on the matter. The testimony was largely in favor of not dissolving the library. Chair of the Board of Commissioners, Rod Beck, said at one point, of the documents submitted online, over 1,000 were in opposition to dissolution while just 55 were in support of dissolution.
The library said the support shows what the district means to the community.
“It's no surprise," said Jeff Kohler, the Vice Chair of the Meridian Library District Board of Trustees. "We know that there’s overwhelming support in our community for meridian library district and the services that we provide to so many thousands and thousands of people that live within our district’s boundaries. and that proportion of comments in favor of the library versus opposed to the library mirrors exactly what we’ve known all along."
The Board of Commissioners did express their desire to see a change in the way the library handles complaints in the future, as well as hope that both the Library District and the CCoM will be able to find a middle ground that works best for both parties. However, the solution of dissolution was thought to be too extreme.
The CCoM says the day was not a failure though. They were excited about the public engagement the petition got, and that people were able to speak their minds, regardless of which side they were on.
A spokesperson for the group, Michael Hon, tells Idaho News 6, their fight against the library system is not over yet. They are excited about several bills in the legislature like Senate Bill 1187 which looks at the materials libraries have available to children.
“We’re kind of hoping that some of these bills come to fruition that allows citizens some kind of recourse," Hon said.
