Proper Role of Government questioned for this special June 25th election by mail when Weber County voters will be against, or for the $45 million library bonding proposal which would have a total cost of $58 million.
The Weber County Commissioners held a public hearing on March 19 to consider a face value 49.75 million dollar citizen bond vote to: build a new, much larger Weber County branch library in Roy; to refurbish the main library in Ogden and move the headquarters to Roy; to move services from North Ogden that are now in the basement to Roy; and to remodel the North Ogden Branch’s basement. The Commission deferred their decision until March 26th, 2013, when they voted 2 to 1 to reduce the bond proposal to $45 million. Commissioner Jan Zogmaister voted “no” to the reduction because she wanted to keep the March 19th proposal. According to Dan Olsen of Weber County, the principal plus interest for the March 26th proposed multi-decade year bond would actually be closer to $58 or 59 million. This would have raised taxes $11.00 per $100,000 of residential property value for the duration of the bond. Taxes for commercial property would rise 40% more than the residential rate increase. Commissioner Matt Bell questioned “whether it is wise to double the County debt with this new bond proposal.”
On the 19th, Lynnda Wangsgard, County-appointed president of the Weber County Library Board, introduced representatives from various firms that have been involved in drawing up plans so far. Although Commissioner Kerry Gibson, who was conducting the meeting, recognized some in the audience who were opposed to the proposal, all who spoke were in favor of most aspects except that Dave Hartman of the Ogden-Weber Chamber of Commerce spoke in favor of frugality, a sentiment that was echoed by Commissioners Zogmaister and Bell. Weber County citizen, Cache Miller, later said that he “does not believe that forcing those who don’t use the library to pay for those who do is according to the proper role of government, but rather; the library system is an enterprise.” The Sentinel News found only one exact reference to public libraries in the Utah Constitution. It states that “public libraries’ property is not subject to taxation.” That addition to the Constitution took effect on Jan. 1, 2007.
On the 19th, Commissioner Kerry Gibson expressed some concerns about the “idea floating around” for a special vote by mail election in June for a bond to be possibly combined with an Ogden vote. His concern is that there would be too little voter turnout. He mentioned that the legislature has made it mandatory in the future for bond votes to correspond with November elections only. This time it would not apply though. In the end, the Commissioners voted to post-pone their decision until the next time they met on March 26, 2013. The possibilities at that time according to the discussion would be to postpone the vote until later in the year, and/or reduce the amount put forward to the voters.
For more information on the Library Bond issue see the video in our video section and check back often for updates.
