An Act of Grace After Library Snubbed By Josephine County, Again

The Josephine Community Library District has endured countless attacks by Josephine County Commissioners in the last two years, the majority originating from recalled commissioner John West and his supporters, many of whom also have held leadership roles in the Central Committee of the Josephine County Republicans.  And the JoCo Central Committee Republican leadership must be distinguished from general local republicans as many are not happy with the Central Committee leadership and the Central Committee’s support of actions by Josephine County Commissioners that have been deemed corrupt and in some cases illegal.

If you have not been following along, here’s a brief summary of what the Josephine County Library District has had to endure in the last couple years.

1. The Library (and local residents) lost a broadband grant of almost $200,000 in 2023 because newly appointed IT and Emergency Management Director Michael Sellers (also vice chair of the JoCo Republican Central Committee) refused to meet to finalize the grant.  This grant was arranged by Sellers’ predecessor and after approximately eight attempts to meet with Sellers the Library had no choice but to let it go.
2. Towards the end of 2023 Commissioners illegally approved a library district withdrawal petition, resulting in a costly lawsuit that the County lost.
3. Commissioner West and friends lined up many “political allies” to also try and withdraw from the Library District, only being stopped by the lawsuit before the Commissioners could approve additional withdrawal petitions.
4. Former Commissioner West was caught calling property owners that applied to annex into the Library District giving them misleading information about the financial risks of joining the Library District.
5. Towards the end of 2024, former Commissioner West pushed urgently to significantly increase the rent/lease terms of the Grants Pass Library Branch which also serves as the headquarters for the library district and is a building which is owned by the County.
6. Right after voters recalled West from office in December 2024, West arranged a Commissioner meeting where he suggested the library lease be increased from $1 per year to about $15,000 per month, a ridiculous proposal given the entirely of the circumstances surrounding the $1 per year lease terms.
7. The day before the West recall vote was certified by the County Clerk, West ignored the 6 different dates the Library suggested they could be available to meet in January, called a commissioner meeting without the Library being at the table, and convinced newly elected Commissioners Ron Smith and Chris Barnett to unilaterally cancel the Library’s lease with just 30 days’ notice.
8. On February 11, 2025, the Commissioners met with the Library to discuss lease termination and Commissioners were not prepared to begin negotiations.  The Library attorney suggested the Commissioners meet in executive session to determine what they wanted to propose for continuing the lease.
9. Commissioners scheduled another meeting for March 13^th at 10am to begin negotiating the next lease.  The Library’s attorney reached out on Monday March 10^th because they still had not heard a word about what sort of terms the County wanted to propose for the next lease term.  Once again the attorney suggested Commissioners meet in executive session to discuss what terms they want to propose for the next lease.  Commissioners did end up meeting in executive session on this topic the next day.
10. The morning of Wednesday, March 12^th, County Legal Counsel Wally Hicks sends an email to the Library’s attorney all of a sudden saying “a morning time tomorrow is now unavailable” but that the Commissioners can meet at 1:30pm instead.  Believe it or not, Wally Hicks reported that “The Commissioners will ask whether the Library wants to stay in the facility after the lease terminates [in December 2025 according to the original lease], and if so, what kind of terms they have in mind.  [Library representatives have said repeatedly they want to stay in this building for several more years until a new Grants Pass branch is built in the future].
11. The Library attorney reached back out Wednesday afternoon to try and confirm whether the 1:30 meeting would happen the next day or whether any County officials could be available to meet either Thursday morning or Thursday afternoon.  The day ended without the County returning this message and no County Commissioner meeting agenda was posted online (County meeting agendas must be posted 24 hours in advance of the meeting).  The Library put out a press release saying they were going to show up Thursday morning and hold a press conference if County officials refused to meet.  Rather than take some time to try and answer the library and finalize meeting arrangements, Commissioner Chris Barnett felt the need to take some time and put out a dueling press release Wednesday that alleged the Library cancelled the meeting.  And this was despite the Library District board president communicating with Commissioner Chris Barnett on Facebook, confirming that the meeting was not cancelled by the Library.
12. Thursday Commissioners were nowhere to be found, and the Commissioners’ office secretary claimed the meeting was cancelled “by the Library.”  Library representatives did in fact hold a press conference with a large crowd in attendance in front of the Anne Basker auditorium.  A great act of grace was observed at the press conference (more on that later in this report).
    

The official talking points of the County Commissioners, both recalled and currently in office, as well as attacks originating from the Josephine County Republican Party Central Committee, seem to be the County cannot “afford” to continue leasing this building for $1 per year while maintaining the exterior part of the building.  At the end of 2024 Commissioner West manufactured an urgent roof and HVAC replacement project for the Grants Pass library building which will cost the County close to an estimated $100,000.  Yet, the Grants Pass Library roof has been leaking for at least 15 years according to Library staff.  The County says it pays about $25k per year to maintain the exterior of the building, which is an estimated figure that lacks details on hard expenses to back up this estimate.  Given that the County has let a leaky roof continue for at least 15 years and the HVAC system is well past its typical useful life, the County hasn’t likely spent an average of about $25k per year on exterior building maintenance.

And then there is the fact that since 2007 when the County stopped funding Library operations, over $40 million total of property tax levies that were originally intended for the library have been diverted to other County operations.  And the independent library operations that took over after 2007 have poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into interior upgrades to the Grants Pass library building.  Last but not least, the inconvenient truth that County officials will not comment on is that the County’s Charter, section 14.5 states “The Board shall provide for the support and maintenance of the main library and library branches.”  The Library’s $1 per year lease is how the County has satisfied this legal obligation in recent years.  It seems likely that another expensive lawsuit against the County could ensue if they take this current lease discussion too far.

All that being said, the Library District officials are now long past the point where many would feel they would be justified going on the offensive against County Commissioners and the County legal counsel.  But an amazing thing happened in the Library officials’ press conference Thursday morning.  Library Director Kate Lasky, in some opening remarks regarding why the County Commissioners didn’t honor the meeting request, stated “Let’s give them some grace and say potential misunderstanding of an email that didn’t cancel the meeting…” 

This reminds me of Matthew 18:21-22 which in the NIV translation states:

Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.”

In fact, the terms “grace,” “forgiveness,” and related terms show up almost 300 times in the Holy Bible.  We would all do well to remember this, myself included.

Commissioner Chris Barnett and leaders of the Josephine County Republican Party Central Committee and related political allies took a very different approach last week to this library lease political hot potato.  Rather than taking the time to sit down with library representatives, Commissioner Chris Barnett put out a dueling press release on Wednesday alleging the library cancelled the meeting and quoted himself in the press release.  Then again rather than meeting, Barnett then took to social media on Thursday and promoted a Library news article hit piece written by Bill Kronert of the United Conservatives of Josephine County (an extension of the Josephine County Republican Party Central Committee) which was called “Josephine County’s Library Lease Battle: Facts vs. Fiction.”  Ironically, this library hit piece was full of misinformation and false statements.  In my opinion, the majority of the piece was misinformation.  Kronert’s title in this “Conservative” organization is a board member and “Consultant / Research / Webmaster” which sounds similar to the title he held in the Josephine County Republican Party Central Committee until a couple months ago.  He lost his title with the Josephine County Republican Party not long after he and several others associated with John West and Chris Barnett were sued for allegedly spreading misinformation about the owner of the Grants Pass Tribune.  It remains unclear whether the timing of these title changes is coincidental.

But that’s not all, Commissioner Chris Barnett decided on Friday March 14^th to pay money to Facebook to promote/advertise this Facebook post “news” article hit piece on the library written by Kronert.  This “news” report full of misinformation about library lease negotiations was paid and promoted by Barnett on his new Facebook page named the “Josephine County Tribune.”  As previously reported, this is a “news” service recently launched by Commissioner Chris Barnett to attack the Grants Pass Tribune, putting both Josephine County and Barnett personally at even more legal risk.

Holli Morton, chair of the Josephine County Republican Party Central Committee, was on the Bill Meyer radio show on Friday morning March 14^th and stated, “The Library…they are kind of playing games in a certain way because the library now pays $1 a year to use the facility…and our county is a very poor county…”  Then Bill Meyer interrupts and repeats the lie about Josephine County being a broke county due to all the things former Commissioner Herman Baertschiger said on the many times on his radio show.

Holli Morton went on to say, “They’ve got $900,000 in the bank, they’re doing okay…they can afford to pay…but they are demonstrating, they’re out in front of the Anne Basker yesterday demonstrating…and to me it’s just an embarrassment to them.”  Morton went on to say, “What they should do is just come to the table and say how can we all work together…this is our community, let’s work together and see what we can come up with….they’re trying to make it look like the Commissioners are the bad guys…that kind of thing, yes in Grants Pass that’s embarrassing.”

I guess Ms. Morton hasn’t read last Wednesday’s BCC Weekly – The Josephine County Commissioners Don’t Realize the County Has a Relatively Good Financial Position.  And the “$900k” the Library has in the bank is primarily just a carryover fund balance that is mostly carried over from fiscal year to fiscal year to be able to operate the library for the first five months of the fiscal year until the year’s property tax revenues start to come in during November each year.  Josephine County has close to $71 million “in the bank” as of the last audited financial report.  Let’s see Holli Morton use similar logic to make the case that the County cannot afford to keep this $1 per year lease which is actually costing the County very little to maintain.

At the end of the day, library representatives have gone out of their way to attempt to have a positive and collaborative approach to the Commissioners’ unilateral cancelling of their lease agreement without even sitting down to have a meeting with the library.  In the County’s misguided press release on Wednesday, a portion of Commissioner Chris Barnett’s quote was “I hope we can have good and productive discussions in the future.”

I hope so too, but promoting a library hit piece on Facebook on a “news” page operated by Commissioner Chris Barnett is not putting your best foot forward if one hopes for good and productive discussions.

My hope, and prayer, now that the Commissioners are beginning to start their weekly business sessions with prayer, is that future weekly prayers will reflect on one or more of the nearly 300 Holy Bible passages that emphasize the importance of grace and forgiveness.  Because I have yet to find a bible passage that states retribution is correct course of action in these types of humanly disputes.

“But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.” Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”  James 4:6-7 NIV