Library Trustee Disagrees With Rest of Board on Proposed Levy

Five of 's six on the March ballot.

The sixth trustee, Deborah Foley, was not at the meeting and has since said that she does not agree with putting the levy on the ballot.

Instead, she said the board should have waited for the library's current 1.1-mill levy to expire next year before seeking a new one.

"We should have let the levy expire before going back on the ballot and made cuts to stay within our means," Foley said. "I think we owed it to the voters of our community."

Foley has not attended a Library Board meeting since May because of illness.

Terry Kilbourne, the board's vice president, said Foley did not understand the library's financial situation because she was not at recent meetings.

"I believer her position is, 'Until we're destitute and need to cut hours, we shouldn't seek more money,'" he said.

Kilbourne added that the board did not want to wait until the proverbial 11th hour.

"We thought the prudent thing was to be earlier with it, as opposed to waiting until it was almost too late," he said.

If the levy were approved, the library said it would revoke its current 1.1-mill levy that was passed in 2008. That means the new levy would effectively replace the current levy, though it’s not a replacement levy.

The new levy would produce $3.6 million for the library system, which is $1.7 million more than the current levy, said Library Fiscal Officer Colleen Snyder.

The new levy would cost property owners an additional $28 annually per $100,000 valuation. The levy currently costs property owners $33 per $100,000 valuation.

Kilbourne said part of the levy compensates for .

Foley said the additional $1.7 million per year the library would receive more than compensates for the cuts.

"We were only cut 10 perent by the state and we're in good financial condition," she said.

Kilbourne replied that the state cuts are not the only financial hardship the library weathered recently. He said the library has collected less than anticipated from the current levy because of decreased property values.

"The rules have changed since the levy passed," he said.

The proposed levy still needs to be approved by the Mentor Schools Board of Education before it’s officially on the ballot.

Foley has tendered her resignation to the Library Board for health reasons. However, the resignation has not yet been approved by the Library or Mentor Schools Board of Education.

Usually, the Library Board has seven members. However, after he was convicted of embezzling in federal court. The embezzling conviction had nothing to do with his position on the Library Board or the city of Mentor's Planning Commission.