Mount Vernon City Library to close books on rural readers
So she visits the Mount Vernon City Library and goes home with 30 books each week.
Her young son is an avid reader, and she said she couldn't afford to buy him enough books to satisfy his appetite.
But barring a change by the Mount Vernon Library Board, the largest library in Skagit County will no longer check out books to all non-city residents beginning in January. The city simply can't afford to subsidize these county residents, said board President Chuck Smith.
Bambrick and 600 other county residents now pay $80 a year to use the Mount Vernon Library. All seven public libraries in Skagit County have various fees — for someone to buy cards to use all of the libraries would cost about $400.
Bambrick doesn't mind paying the $80, but she worries what will happen if she is shut out of the Mount Vernon library in January.
"It's unbelievable to me that people don't think it's important," she said. "We have a lot of kids in Skagit County who have to camp out in the library all day because they can't take books home. A lot of parents can't afford the $80."
Bambrick and several other county residents have formed a group, Skagit Libraries for All. They hope to put a measure on the February ballot that would create a tax on each rural property owner who lives outside an established library district. If it passes, residents in those areas would get access to all county libraries.
There are 37,000 residents of rural Skagit County, including half of the county's school-age children, who have no access to libraries unless they buy cards.
While 22 percent of the Mount Vernon library circulation is to nonresidents, the nonresidents pay only 7.1 percent of the library budget, said Donna Wineman, deputy director of the Mount Vernon Library.
Smith, the Library Board president, said it was a hard decision to close the library doors to non-city residents.
"It was very much a financial decision. The usage of materials by nonresidents ... means more wear and tear on the books. Here, cards are issued per family, and with cousins, aunts and uncles you may have a dozen people using one card."
But Smith, who voted earlier this year to close the Mount Vernon library to nonresidents, said he has changed his mind and that the board could reconsider its vote.
That may depend on how much money Skagit County commissioners give to county libraries. He said last year the commissioners cut the support in half, and Smith is hoping to have some of that money restored next year.
"We're the only county in northwest Washington not to have a countywide system," said Smith.
Regardless of whether the board changes its mind on the Mount Vernon library, backers of the tax proposal still say it's important to have countywide funding that will help all county libraries.
The proposal would levy a tax of 39 cents for every $1,000 in property valuation, or $39 per $100,000 value. The owner of a $200,000 home would pay $78 a year, about what a Mount Vernon library card costs alone.
With this tax, all county residents could use any county library for free — assuming the other six libraries in the county signed on — and would also have access to libraries in other counties.
Twice before, in the 1990s, voters narrowly rejected taxing themselves to create a library district. But this proposal is different, said Mindy Cosler, with the Skagit Valley Community College library and a member of the Libraries for All group.
Rather than creating a countywide library district, this proposal would create a partial district, and the other libraries would have a choice of whether or not to join it.
"Our whole goal, our number-one goal, is a universal library card," said Cosler. "We want to bring all libraries together. This would serve as an umbrella under which libraries can collaborate because of cost savings. And a lot of the libraries in the small towns are struggling."
The group is trying to get enough signatures, about 2,500, to put the issue on the ballot. They say they have more than 2,000 and are optimistic they'll collect enough to get a vote early next year.
But residents who don't want their taxes raised could doom the measure.
"It would be a charity," said Burlington resident Michael King. "People would be coerced into it and have to go along with it. It's a disproportional amount for something I'd never use. I'm tired of people having their fingers in my pocket."
He said a lot of the county residents are farmers, "and most farmers are too busy to go to the library anyway."
But the proposal has won the support of most of the cities in the county.
Ken Winkes, a retired school administrator, lives in Conway, an area not served by any library.
"Books are really important," he said. "I live through them, by them. For the Conway community, the absence of a rural library system would be very deeply felt."
Susan Gilmore: 206-464-2054 or sgilmore@seattletimes.com
