LIBERTY LAKE, Wash. – If at first you don’t succeed, try again. For outgoing Liberty Lake City Council Member Phil Folyer, he finally succeeded at pushing through an unpopular ordinance regarding control of the city’s library board of trustees less than a month before his term ended.
Folyer brought the motion, which Mayor Cris Kaminskas vetoed after passing 4-to-3 in May, back to the table after this November’s election. With Mike Kennedy replacing Tom Salhberg this month, and Folyer not being replaced by his opponent Linda Ball until January, Folyer had two meetings where he had a 5-to-2 veto-proof majority to pass this ordinance.
“If I was still on the Council tonight,” Salhberg said, “you would not have the opportunity to pull off this coup.”
There were only two major changes between this proposed ordinance and the one vetoed in May. The passed ordinance took away language which would’ve allowed the Council to retroactively examine library board policies, making it so they could only look at policies in the future. This version also removed a crucial section stating neither the Mayor nor the board would have the power to ban books.
Council Member Annie Kurtz put a proposed amendment to add the anti-book banning language back, but the majority voted it down, saying library policy on book reconsideration is already set, and now that they don’t have the power to examine older library board policies, there’s no need.
“At the last meeting someone said something to the effect of ‘Just tell us what you’re gonna do, if you’re going to ban books or restrict access, own it,’” Kurtz said.
After the vote, Mayor Kaminskas read a statement expressing her displeasure, but announcing she would not waste everyone’s time by vetoing the motion.
“I do have the option of not signing the ordinance,” she said. “It won’t prevent it from going into law, unfortunately, however I can exercise the right to not sign it to reaffirm my position on this whole topic.”
