12/2/2025 BM HTML

Board Meeting Minutes 12/2/2025 (html)

Tuesday, December 2, 2025
LIBRARY BOARD MEETING
SILVER FALLS LIBRARY DISTRICTSilver Falls Library Program Room
410 S. Water St., Silverton, Oregon

            Board Members Present:                                         Staff Present:
            Ingrid Donnerstag                                                       Christy Davis, Director
            Dmitry White                                                              Stacy Higby
            Nancy Miller
            Michelle Sanguinetti                                                   Public Present:


            Board Members Absent:
            Megan Smith

CALL TO ORDER
Chair White called the meeting to order at 5:30 p.m.

REVIEW OF AGENDA

Corrections

Total October checks and all EFTs is $103,550.46.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES

Change Review of Agenda to December 2.
Remove two extra commas from Old Business #1.
Remove extra comma from New Business #2.
Hyphenate “break-in” in Director’s Report.
Replace comma and dash with colon in Director’s Report.

Motion: To approve the November 4, 2025 Board Meeting minutes as amended
(Motion by: Dmitry White. Second by: Ingrid Donnerstag).
Vote: Unanimously in favor.

FINANCIAL REPORT, OCTOBER 2025
The Board received and reviewed the following reports:

Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Fund Balances (as of October 31, 2025)
General Fund Statement of Cash Receipts (as of October 31, 2025)
General Fund Statement of Cash Disbursements (as of October 31, 2025)
Check Register – Citizen’s Bank (October 1-31, 2025)
LGIP Account Statement (as of October 31, 2025)
Purchase Order – Visa (closing date September 22, 2025)
Journal Entries (as of October 31, 2025)

Statement of Cash Receipts:

Should the check from the City be in Miscellaneous Income? Michelle shared information that indicates it should be Capital Contributions or Non-Operational Revenue, and the corresponding expenses should be Capital Expenses. We will ask Accuity what is the correct way. Will we need a budget resolution to move it to a new budget line? Probably yes, but we’ll ask Accuity about that too.
Interest rate dropped to 4.25%, which is the second drop this month.
A larger than usual transfer from LGIP in advance of Christy’s vacation, and the receipt of the check from the City caused the monthly ending balance to be over $93,000, which is higher than usual.

Statement of Cash Disbursements

Why is Equipment Maintenance so high? The annual maintenance contract with Bibliotheca for the gate was paid. It is the major expense in this line.
What is the percentage of Spanish language materials checked out per month? It’s very low. Staff has tried in various ways to promote the library to Spanish speakers, but checkouts of adult Spanish materials is low. We have been assigning 5% of the Books budgets to Spanish language materials. There are not as many Spanish language items available for purchase, including eBooks and e-audiobooks. Spanish youth items check out much more frequently. On average, how many requests do we receive for purchasing Spanish books? We can run hold reports to check, but total purchase requests for all print materials are fewer than 5 per month.
How do you manage hold requests? With the CCRLS libraries, a report is generated each month of titles with 5 or more holds. Our Circulation staff checks that list to see if we have those books, especially if any of the holds are for our patrons. If we do not have the book, we will order it very quickly to fill our patron’s holds, and CCRLS libraries with larger book budgets will also try to order additional copies of high-demand books.
Do you monitor the difference between eBooks and physical book checkouts from out patrons, and is there a financial impact from patrons choosing one over the other? We have a set budget for print books that hasn’t changed significantly in the last 5 years, but books and the materials needed to process them have become more expensive, so we get fewer books for the same amount. EBooks from Overdrive (the Libby app) are purchased by the State Library, and by CCRLS, for libraries to share, and we can purchase our own copies of high-demand titles if needed. Hold requests on the Libby app are tracked by the volunteer collection development team comprised of staff members from the participating libraries in Oregon. Do you have a sense of what percentage of our patrons prefer eBooks versus physical books? That was included in our survey during the strategic plan process, and there was a preference for physical materials, but patrons willing to take the survey may not be representative of all patrons. This information is also available in our annual statistical report to the State Library of Oregon. EBooks have limited checkouts before the license expires, while physical books can be checked out many more times before needing to be replaced. Additionally, companies force libraries to treat eBooks like physical books, limiting check outs to one patron at a time, which is frustrating for both libraries and patrons.

Motion: To approve the OCTOBER 2025 Financial Report as presented, including checks #18226 through and including #18247, and all EFTs, for a total of $103,555.46.
(Motion by: Dmitry White. Second by: Nancy Miller).
Vote: Unanimously in favor.

OLD BUSINESS

Parking Lot and City of Silverton Updates

Christy met with Cory (the meeting included Hilary Dumitrescu, Assistant to the City Manager, and Jason Gottgetreu, Director of Community Development) on November 7th to talk more about the land transfer, the desire for a walk your wheels zone extension, and the issue of the leaves and other foliage not being attended to at the former Community Center/SACA building. It was there that Christy learned that she was going to have to produce the Warranty Deed for the shared parking lot so that the land exchange transaction can be completed.
Christy asked Eileen Eakins at Northwest Local Government Legal Advisors, and she replied today. The warranty deed and land transfer documents will then get recorded. There will be a recording fee, but maybe no other closing costs.
K&L asphalt finished the paving job, but the striping is incorrect and not what we asked for. The day the work was being done, Christy told the crew about the deviation from the diagram shown in the contract, and they said the boss would come by. The boss didn’t speak to Christy that night and the crew attempted to fix it, but it’s still not correct. They are going to have to re-stripe it and re-set the parking blocks. We are willing to pay for a small area of additional asphalt and they could create our signs as well, but we won’t pay for them to do that work if they can’t fix what’s already wrong. It needs to be fixed immediately; but for now, we should take down the handicapped signs and move them to the correct parking spaces. Bob from K&L said we should call him again if we don’t hear from them by Wednesday.

Status of renewal of SDAO/SDIS insurance policy and changes and additions to policy

Chris DeVito from Larsen-Flynn is gathering quotes for additional coverage for cyber- and other crime, but we have not received those yet. We are close to the budget for Insurance, so we may add that coverage next year.

NEW BUSINESS

Oregon Library Association’s Public Library Standards, 2021 edition, pages 33-37, Community Engagement and Advocacy Standards

We do a very good job in this area and have been proactive in partnering with the City, Sustainable Silverton, Marion County (Repair Fair), OSU Extension Service, EMAC, Sheltering Silverton, etc. Christy has different skills and interest in community engagement and we have some employees who are focused on reaching out and networking. We have good hiring practices and great programs. What do you feel really good about in these categories? Joining the Chamber of Commerce, getting involved with EMAC, applying for the solar grant from the Oregon Department of Energy, and being viewed as a community resource. Christy is really invested in the old City Hall, the pool, and the Community Center. She has met with City Manager Cory Misley and encouraged him to put out an RFP for the old City Hall building. Cory has been meeting with the school superintendent, fire chief, police chief, Chamber director, Silver Falls State Park superintendent and Christy for lunch quarterly to discuss shared goals and frustrations. Having the library district viewed as a leadership organization in this way has been positive. What’s frustrating about community engagement and advocacy? Staff that don’t see the value of reaching out to the community and doing things that are new and fresh. What’s your dream/top of the wish list for community engagement? Getting the grant for solar power to serve as a community resource in emergencies. Building a second story on original building for more program rooms, and study rooms. We could do more with more space. Starting a library foundation could help with capital funding. On Page 35, one of the essential standards is “The library collects statistics and conducts research such as customer surveys, community studies, citizen surveys, and other means appropriate to evaluate library services and resources.” It’s concerning that’s considered essential because surveys are so difficult and ineffective due to survey fatigue and getting the surveys out in analog format for the non-tech users. Last week Christy called the liaison from the State Library standards committee to ask if there was a newer version and learned the public library standards committee hasn’t convened in 2 years. Then they asked her to be on the committee. How do you encourage employees to share ideas for community engagement? What happened at the Pride event discouraged at least one. There are a couple of people on staff that Christy would love to pull aside and ask about their vision. One person wants to start a podcast (which would cost $2,000 in equipment). Some employees feel inspired to come up with lots of craft and art projects, but some employees would be more creative if they felt more support and less resistance from others who want to continue the same programs and ways of working. A few employees are showing a lot of negativity and gossiping and that hurts the morale of the whole team. Performance evaluations are the best first tool to handle these issues. The Board encouraged Christy to start scheduling evaluations in January, and to be honest about why.

LIBRARY DIRECTOR’S REPORT

Director Davis reported on the following:

Good things:

The Friends of the Library have a couple of people who are interested in running as officers in the coming year and they hope to have an election at their January 7th meeting. The Friends have received some sizable donations of late. Irveta Johnson gave them another $2,000 for them to share with the library for the purchase of large print books. In the last 18 months, this patron has given The Friends $5,000 for the purchase of large print items. Jane Jones recently gave us $1,000, specifically for help in the Technical Services department for the archival project, with a desire that it be spent on contract staff to help move the project forward.
Also, in Friends of the Library news, they are now putting inserts in every new welcome kit that the library hands out upon registering for a new library card.
In November, we made 65 new library cards, bringing the total so far for this year to 850.
The best news is from the Supreme Court, with its decision to agree with the state of Rhode Island that the cuts to the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) were illegal. This restores funding to all states under this valuable and critical federal program.

Challenges:

We continue to wait on news from Marion County Court regarding our building break-in earlier in the year. Like most court proceedings, it is a drawn-out ordeal of appeals and delays. Now punted to January 2026.
From the time I returned to work on November 3rd, up until last Wednesday, November 26th, my work computer began to fail. The last ten days of that time period, I was having to restart my computer multiple times per day, with each day requiring more restarts. I used my personal computer where and when I could, I used other staff computers in the library when I had to. Still, I lost a lot of productivity and was very frustrated. My computer has now been replaced as it was old, full, and there was no more deleting of data to free up space. I told a tech assistant from CCRLS that I was angry and frustrated and that I thought this wasn’t excusable. He reported this to his boss, our CCRLS Director, Doug Yancey. Doug and I have now had multiple discussions and a meeting about the budget for CCRLS and the staffing levels for the cooperative, especially the low level of IT staff – only 3 people – for a 19-member library system where every single computer component hooked up to the network must be purchased and configured before being deployed. I am going to continue to ask that the staffing level of CCRLS IT be increased or augmented – including through contract work – in some way.
We had another roof leak. This time is the seal around an HVAC unit. Pace Loren’s came out and addressed it. We were able to just paint over the stained ceiling tiles and opted to not file a claim since it was not about a roof warranty issue and there was no damage that cost us significant expense - just some paint and our custodian’s labor.
We have come too close to the threshold for our personnel budget and have had to pare back the number of hours we can guarantee our substitute employees. There is no policy stating that subs are guaranteed ANY hours, but we have done so since COVID to ensure that subs are up to date on policies, procedures, software updates, etc. We have been giving a base of 5 regular hours per week and are now doing 3 to get our personnel costs down. We have had one sub go to a true-sub-only basis – meaning that she will not have any regularly scheduled hours but will come in for illnesses and vacations when the other two subs cannot cover those shifts. This sub is also cross-trained in Youth Services. There will be an upcoming medical leave in youth services.
On November 17th, Stacy and I went to the Chemeketa campus to take part in what was called an Evacuation Tabletop Exercise. It was an opportunity for municipalities, emergency personnel, school district personnel, and others to look at map routes for evacuation during natural disasters, chemical spills, unrest, etc., We focused on a manufactured scenario of a fast-moving fire caused by lightning strikes. We had information about the direction of the wind. While this was very interesting and something to think about, we wished that members of our own Silverton EMAC team had been there.

Changes:

Mt. Angel Library has a new director, Dylan Peck. Dylan has been the Circulation Manager at Newberg for years and was briefly the Director at Jefferson. Also, in Mt. Angel news, yesterday they received an installation from solar spectrum artist Peter Erskine and I went and had lunch with Peter and the installation team, then had a brief meeting with the new director, Dylan.

The director used 80 hours of vacation leave and 19 hours of sick leave in October.

ITEMS NOT ON AGENDA OPEN TO PUBLIC, BOARD AND STAFF PARTICIPATION

Reminder of Holiday Party on Monday, December 8, at 6pm.
Do we still have the Ames scrapbooks? Carrie Caster took some out today, but the ownership transfer paperwork is done.
Is there any progress in consolidating our alarm systems? We are waiting for the security camera installation. We did receive a Safety and Security grant from SDAO for half of the cost of the cameras.
Has the City approved the Walk Your Wheels extension? Cory Misley said he will bring it to City Council.
Have we contacted the Non-Profit Association of Oregon? Not yet. Christy also wants to talk to the director for Salem’s library foundation, who lives here in Silverton. Emphasizing the 30-year design life of building will be a good pitch for potential donors.

AGENDA SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE MEETINGS

A representative from the District’s auditing firm, Accuity CPAs, will attend either in person or virtually to present our Financial Report for fiscal year 2024-2025 at the January meeting
Status of Oregon Department of Energy Community Renewable Energy Program grant application should be known by mid-January.

ADJOURNMENT

Motion: To adjourn the meeting at 7:35 p.m.
            (Motion by: Michelle Sanguinetti. Second by: Dmitry White).
            Vote: Unanimously in favor.

____________________________________________________________

The next Library Board meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, January 27, 2026 at 5:30 p.m. in the library program room.

            Approved: __________________________ (date)

            __________________________________________
            Dmitry White
            Chair, Library Board of Directors
Silver Falls Library District