California library closes for March

Wood Place Library is located at 501 S. Oak St., California.
Wood Place Library is located at 501 S. Oak St., California.

The Moniteau County Library @ Wood Place has closed, at least for March, Director Connie Walker said Monday in a statement.

"The litigation between the City of Tipton and the Moniteau County Library District ended (with) a ruling by Judge Donald Barnes, which dissolved the Moniteau County Library District," Walker noted in the statement.

"The result of this order is that the county library is closed effective March 1, 2017."

Barnes found the district never was created legally and should be dissolved.

In his 11-page judgment and order, Barnes wrote: "The total number of votes in favor of passing the district in 1997, between both subdistricts, was not a majority of the individuals who voted. Therefore, the entire measure failed."

When the Moniteau County Commission authorized the library district in 1996, the county had two privately owned libraries - Price James in Tipton and Wood Place in California - but no public libraries.

The commission created two subdistricts and proposed a property tax for voters in each subdistrict to approve.

However, only voters in the Tipton-based Western subdistrict endorsed the tax.

Barnes agreed the commissioners legally placed the district proposal on the 1997 ballot but found: "There is no provision in the statute for the contingency where one subdistrict passes (a proposal) and another does not" or that would allow a district to be created in areas that didn't vote for it.

For years, the district contracted with both private libraries to provide services.

In 2004, the library board asked California city residents if they would support a library tax to be used only for operations of the then-private Wood Place Library - and they did.

However, the judge wrote, "There is no statutory authority for a library district, without (county) commission authority, to create a new subdistrict with different boundaries than any earlier proposition and initiate a vote for it."

In 2013, the county library board accepted a donation of the Wood Place Library to the district and since has been operating it as the library serving the entire county.

Since the district was never created legally, the donation of the Wood Place building in California was not a valid transfer, Barnes ruled.

The judge's findings came in a lawsuit originally filed in October 2015 by Tipton and three of its residents, challenging the way the library district was spending the taxpayers' money and questioning the district's legality.

In her statement, Walker said, "The City of Tipton refused to recognize that the County Library Board had budgetary authority over all county library tax revenue."

Judith Ann (Annie) Willis, a Jefferson City lawyer in Kent Brown's firm who filed the original lawsuit, Monday questioned Walker's statement.

"The board, its tax and its practices were illegal, and the board has taken authority for itself more than once that it does not possess," Willis said. "Most egregiously, the library board was responsible for serving two subdistricts and deliberately refused to serve (the) Western subdistrict at all."

Willis argued state law requires "services be provided within each subdistrict, which the board simply refuses to recognize. The judge agreed with Tipton on all these points."

Walker said she was not able to discuss the situation beyond her statement.

She asked patrons "with materials checked-out to return them to the outside book drop. The book drop will be checked daily for return so that patron accounts may be cleared."

Walker also said: "The future of the county library district and the Wood Place Library is uncertain. We are working on a plan to have reduced hours and bare-bones services to keep our costs down and to keep the doors open in the future.

"At this point, there are too many unknowns to be more definite."

In his Feb. 21 judgment, Barnes wrote, "a receiver shall be appointed by the court in order to ensure that the tax funds and other assets in the possession of the Moniteau County Library District and its board (are) protected."

Willis said Monday she believes "the receiver would have had the ability to operate (the library), pending any appeal and the order becoming final in 30 days. It's unfortunate that the district had to be dissolved, but that could have been easily prevented if the board had paid attention to statutes from the get-go and had worked reasonably with the Tipton area voters in order to serve the whole county, and not just part of it.

"Hopefully now new taxes can be passed in the various areas so that everyone gets the service and fair representation they deserve."

Walker said people will be able to "stay informed of the library's future, (because) postings will be made on the library's Facebook page and webpage when there are updates."

She thanked Moniteau County Library patrons "for your support of the library in the past and in the future."