Submitted by Rycke Brown, Dec 15, 2007 00:49

Jackson and Josephine Counties in Southern Oregon made national news last year when we closed our public libraries because voters would not replace O&C "safety net" funding with new property tax levies. We got another year of safety net funding, and Jackson County is re-opening their libraries with a private corporate operator at half the hours for half the funding. Some cities, like Ashland and Talent, have passed levies to fund more hours at their branches.

Here in Josephine County, we are pursuing a more radical course. We are creating a non-profit to fund and operate our libraries on the public radio model, with donors buying memberships but the library being open to all. The county will continue to own the buildings and materials, but will rent them to the agency at a nominal charge, like $1 per year. The Commissioners are throwing in $300,000 in "seed money" to start, about half a year's normal minimal funding, but after that it will be totally privately funded.

I gave a speech outlining such a proposal at the County Commissioner's meeting when they closed the library. (County Commissioner meetings are recorded for public access television. It's great fun to speak for three minutes.) Commissioner Dave Toler ran with the idea, publicized it, got a big organizing meeting together, threw in the seed money with the help of fellow Commissioner Dwight Ellis, and let the group take it from there. They have been establishing the non-profit, and have started raising money under the umbrella of Rogue Community College as Josephine Community Libraries.

In my speech, I observed that the local Gospel Rescue Mission was totally privately funded, and had expanded during the recent recession while tax-funded charity was being cut. A levy could never be passed to fund the Rescue Mission, yet it keeps on being funded, because the people who care give. It had to cost more to feed and house 80 people every day than to run a library. With leading citizens of the town holding fund raisers, there should be no problem funding the library.

Funding libraries and schools with taxes puts their finances at the mercy of voters and politicians. It prevents the people who want to fund them from doing so, if less then 50% of the voters agree. And people are less apt to give to a government library than a private charity, because the government might turn around and use the money for other purposes, like the true purpose of government even, which isn't running schools and libraries.

Institutions that work have a single purpose, like rescuing lost souls, or lending books and aiding academic research. Government would work better if it would stick to its single purpose--securing rights.

Live Free and Prosper,

Rycke

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