Senior Judge Donald Barnes should extend his order requiring the Moniteau County Library District to hold onto tax money collected in the western part of the county, a lawyer's motion said Wednesday.
On Oct. 28, Barnes ordered the library board and staff not to spend "or pay out any funds currently in their possession, or hereafter received, from the payment of library taxes applicable to the Western Subdistrict" of the library district.
During a Dec. 12 hearing, Barnes extended that order until today.
But, because the judge still hasn't issued a ruling in the case, attorney Judith Anne Willis, of Jefferson City, on Wednesday asked Barnes to continue the order "until such time as a decision has been reached on the issues currently before the Court."
In her two-page motion, Willis told Barnes the two sides in the nearly 15-month-old legal battle "are engaging in good-faith negotiations to help resolve the matter, and hope to be able to reach a compromise soon to present to the Court."
Tipton and the three residents - Cindy L. Suddarth, Leroy E. Knipp and Joe Ed Hartman - sued the library district in October 2015, arguing there's no legal basis for a countywide library district, because voters in the Eastern Subdistrict never approved a property tax for it.
For years, Moniteau County residents could use one of two private libraries - the Tipton-based Price James Memorial Library, now owned by the city, and the California-based Wood Place Library.
In 1996, the county commissioners created a public library district, establishing the Eastern and Western subdistricts. A state law required voters in each subdistrict to approve a property tax, within five years, to help pay for the countywide district.
Voters in the Western Subdistrict - generally defined as the Tipton, Clarksburg and Latham school districts - approved the tax, but the Eastern Subdistrict voters never did.
Voters in California - but not outside the city - approved a library tax in 2004.
The new library district contracted with the two libraries to provide free public library services in each respective subdistrict - and continued to do so through June 2015.
But, the original lawsuit argued, after the district in November 2013 accepted a donation of the Wood Place library to the district, the library board began operating the California facility as the county's library, and reduced the money that previously had been shared with Tipton's Price James Library.
Last year, Judge Kenneth Hayden dismissed the lawsuit, but it was reinstated under the attorney general's authority.
Barnes, a retired judge from Boonville, was assigned to the case in September.
After issuing his order in October, the district placed $72,450 in a special Money Market Account.
Library Director Connie Walker told the News Tribune on Wednesday another $55,226 was added to that account on Monday, after the district received tax collections from Moniteau County.
An accounting report Walker provided the newspaper shows that money market account now has more than $127,686 in it, that is being held under Barnes' order.
However, last Friday, Willis filed a five-page motion asking Barnes to find library board members in contempt of the Oct. 28 order, for receiving "at least $9,913" in taxes collected in the Western Subdistrict.
"There is no evidence that this money was set aside by the (library board) in any way," Willis wrote last week.
Walker and Willis both told the News Tribune on Wednesday that a story in Wednesday's newspaper incorrectly reported the amount of money Willis said the district hasn't set-aside under the judge's order.
"The funds in dispute in (last week's) motion are the $9,913 in recently-collected funds, of which they have spent around $6,370," Willis explained Wednesday.
Walker said the district has followed Barnes' order, and that filing a contempt motion doesn't mean the judge will grant it.
Willis' motion last Friday asked Barnes to schedule a hearing on the contempt motion - which, according to Case.net, the state courts' online docket system - he had not done as of Wednesday evening.