Dayton Chronicle - Your Hometown News Source

DAYTON–The City Council heard public comments about the library annexation and feedback about council members and policies at the March 12 meeting.

Katie Roughton spoke to the council about her request for the annexation of the city into the Columbia County Rural Library District (CCRLD) to be put on the November ballot for a vote. "I really appreciate the workshops you have had, but it is really frustrating to listen to you talk about what you think I am getting at, and then I am not able to interact," said Roughton.

Roughton said she understands that if the city voters were to un-annex from the CCRLD, that the taxpayers do not get that money back, but that they would be redistributed to other entities in the same tax bracket. "It's not like the city residents would get their taxes back, which is good," Roughton said. "I think EMS falls in that category. I think Fire falls in that category, as well as other things. Which I fully would rather see that go."

She also stated that she has done some amending to the lease. "I would like to see the lease amended so that the city is back to watching those tax dollars, watching the trusts, all of that," said Roughton. Unfortunately, that must go back to a vote of the people, too. I say give the vote to the people. I say that because when you start look at your tax levy sheets, and you see that the city is getting less tax dollars than that library. Can you imagine more than running our city?"

Dayton resident James Berg also made a comment in favor of a vote for the city voters, "I just wanted to have the ability to be represented, because right now we are not represented in the library and that bothers me," he said.

Later during the final public comment section at the end of the meeting Theresa Eier took to the podium to speak to the council about both the library issue and the complaint against Councilperson Teeny McMunn. She implied that she understood the request about annexation to mean that the city would then attempt to create and fund its own library. "It was my impression or my understanding that in 2005, the library went into a vote because it was strictly city tax dollars that were funding it and the city could no longer fund it," said Eier. "It is interesting what is going to change concerning funding our library and the city has already explained in multiple ways that we cannot afford to fund the library for the services it provides now." She asked the City Council how they plan to fund a library if this un-annexation happens.

She also commended the City Council for working on revising its policies and that she believes the ethical complaint against councilwoman McMunn was to distract from the ethics problem of another council member. Theresa Eier has an active lawsuit against the City of Dayton and councilwoman Laura Aukerman for public records act violations.

The City Council will be hosting a workshop on March 19 where they will further discuss the Library Annexation request, and then will add it to the next City Council meeting where the council will vote on whether to add it to the ballot or not.