Timberland Regional Library Board votes to abandon plan that would close libraries

The board of the Timberland Regional Library voted unanimously Wednesday to remove the lingering threat of branch closures, but faced questions about eroded public trust in the library system’s administration.

“It was so clear that people did not want to see libraries closed, that their libraries matter to them,” said board president Brian Zylstra. “There’s been some trust lost in different communities, and that’s very regretful, and we needed to do something to regain that, and tonight we took a major step toward doing that.”

The vote came after months of public backlash following the September release of a proposed Capital Facilities Plan. That document called for the closure of a third of the 27 libraries in TRL’s five-county system.

In October, the board voted to stave off any closures until at least August 2019, and created an ad-hoc committee to look at Timberland’s budget issues and the new service proposals outlined in the document. On Wednesday, the board dissolved that committee and voted to take closures off the table altogether.

Instead, in 2019, the board will begin holding a second monthly board meeting on the 2nd Wednesday of each month to discuss policies and implications of the projected $700,000 budget shortfall.

Board member Corby Varness said the looming closure questions have stressed residents in the affected communities, and it was important for Timberland to put that worry to rest.

“The agony in our communities is quite real,” she said, referencing a multitude of messages she’d received from library patrons.

A number of residents and Timberland employees came forward during the public comment portion of the meeting to express concern, following a Chronicle story earlier this month that disclosed emails among Timberland administrators discussing closing a library as far back as July and repeatedly silencing staff who tried to warn the public.

“We all read the most recent article in The Chronicle. It was very disturbing, disappointing, and it was sadly not particularly surprising,” said Kelly Walker, a staff member in the Centralia branch, pointing to staff surveys that have indicated branch employees feel the administration lacks communication and transparency.

Walker mentioned an all-staff training day in September at which many Timberland staffers called for better communication from leadership. That training took place less than two weeks before the closure proposal was released, but administrators kept mum about the proposal even after being challenged to be more transparent.

Nathan Coutsoubos, principal at White Pass Elementary Schools, called the administration’s approach “muzzle and mislead or lie and deny,” and called for the board to investigate the process that led to the closure plan. He also referenced the $10,000 that Timberland spent to receive public relations advice from a Seattle-based consultant in the aftermath of the closure backlash.

“Trust has been broken, and we need you, the board, to fix it,” he said. “Let’s get some sunshine. … Don’t spend $10,000 on terrible advice to lie.”

Lewis County Commissioner Edna Fund also asked for more transparency.

“Analyze where this firestorm started,” she said. “Where can we learn from this? I hope the administration has learned to keep their trustees informed, to keep their staff informed.”

Fund has called for the removal of Library Director Cheryl Heywood.

Lhisa Reish, president of the AFSCME Local 3758 union that represents Timberland employees, also challenged the administration, alongside the union’s supervisor unit secretary Holly Paxson.

“Our union was given no prior knowledge of (the proposal) before it was released to the public,” Reish said. “Our members are often the frontline staff who field questions and complaints about this proposal from community members, and they do not always have a manager on-site to refer patrons to. This is a difficult and unsustainable position for our members.”

That tension has been felt by Walker as well, who said branch workers were told to refer questions back the administration following The Chronicle story about the inner workings of the closure process and the silencing of staff. That’s difficult to do, she said, when she doesn’t trust the leaders to whom she’s supposed to be directing her patrons.

“My patrons trust me, and that says a lot right now considering the current mood,” she said. “Your last goodwill ambassadors are your staff, and you’re not using us. I have patrons coming to me upset and wanting answers. My job is to help people. … My job is not to lie and misdirect people. This has put me in an incredibly difficult position. Do I toe the party line and send my patrons back to an untrustworthy administration for their answers?”

Following the meeting, Zylstra was asked about Heywood’s position, given the questions of trust raised by the public and Timberland employees, as well as the call for her ouster by Fund, who sits on the Lewis County Commission which appointed Zylstra to the Timberland board.

“We’re doing an evaluation on Cheryl as executive director,” he said. “That’s what we do each year at this time. We’re in the middle of the evaluation process. I can’t comment on that, because it’s still in draft form. I can’t comment until it’s been finalized, which will occur in December.”

That evaluation will be presented at the board’s next meeting on Dec. 19.

The board also opted Wednesday to send a letter to Washington Department of Natural Resources, urging it to consider the effects of its timber harvesting decisions. Since the mid-1990s, TRL’s timber revenue has been cut by more than half as harvests have waned.