The Fayetteville City Council last week fast-tracked a decision to submit a library millage election to Fayetteville voters.
Council members are bound to get criticism from some citizens for the quick action even as they are heralded for setting in motion the long-discussed millage campaign for the city's library.
The Blair Library is undeniably a local treasure that, as supporters frequently argue, is "being loved to death." The award-winning, nationally recognized library has seen increased use even as library officials have had to cut the annual budget.
Officials say it is at capacity and they have done all they can to make ends meet.
There really is no argument about the need. This library needs more money and more space to deliver the kind of services its users demand. But tax increases, even for something as popular as this library is, can be hard to come by.
What voters in Fayetteville will decide in August is whether to approve a millage hike to meet the two needs. Part of the revenue would fund a bond issue to expand and improve the library. The rest would provide additional money for its operation.
A continuing legal dispute over ownership of the adjacent former City Hospital property complicates the situation. Its sale to the library seems likely, once all appeals are exhausted, but final plans for expansion will have to wait a while longer. In the meantime, the library needs to secure funding to operate what it has and to pay for expansion whether it is on the hospital property or contained to the existing library footprint.
Either way, the library needs new money and has waited about as long as it can to get it.
If voters approve, city taxpayers would initially pay a 3.7-mill library tax, up from the current 1 mill city property owners pay. The library tax would eventually drop back to 2.5 mills.
At the 3.7-mill rate, the tax would cost property owners roughly $54 a year for every $100,000 worth of property they own.
It's not a huge dollar increase to individual taxpayers, but size won't matter to the anti-tax crowd, which could mount an opposition campaign inspired in part by the swift action by the City Council.
In a single meeting, the council heard the necessary ordinance read three times and adopted an emergency clause as they called an Aug. 9 special election on library funding.
It is a process that some governing bodies follow routinely, more often on noncontroversial matters than on anything that might stir opposition.
On issues with even a hint of controversy, those readings usually get spread out over consecutive meetings and can take weeks or months to consider.
Remember, the Fayetteville council sent a proposed tax hike to voters in a single meeting, effectively inviting criticism.
The successive votes were all 6-1 with one council member absent. The one "no" vote came from Ward 4 Alderman John La Tour. He had two basic complaints, each of which might be fodder for opponents to use against the library campaign.
The first complaint was the millage vote was being set as a special election rather than in conjunction with the November general election. La Tour went so far as to suggest that the timing amounts to "voter suppression" because fewer voters typically turn out for special elections than for the general election.
His other complaint was about the quick consideration of the ordinance in one meeting, rather than in multiple meetings spread over time.
Clearly, there was support for the millage question from some of the other council members. They wanted the vote to happen. But they also were following significant advice from City Attorney Kit Williams.
Calling the election was merely an "administrative duty" of the board and the aldermen couldn't change the date even if they wanted to, according to Williams.
The petitioning citizens chose the date for the vote, he said, when about 500 residents signed a petition for an Aug. 9 vote and submitted it to the council. The citizens acted under provisions of Amendment 30 to the state Constitution, which allows as few as 100 eligible voters to petition for a library tax.
Asked why they wanted the August date, supporters in the audience said the timing is necessary to get the new property tax revenue to the library in 2017.
A lot of factors have played into development of the library millage proposal, some forcing delays and others creating this time crunch to get the money flowing quickly.
The proposal is what it is, complicated by the combination of temporary and permanent tax hikes and aggravated by the continuing land dispute.
Nevertheless, it is headed to a vote.
Last week, the petitioners got what they wanted from the council. Now they must persuade Fayetteville voters to go along.
Commentary on 05/22/2016