By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
Officials with the Rolling Hills Library, serving Buchanan and Andrew Counties, are calling an ad campaign against an upcoming tax levy on next week’s ballot misleading.
Library Director Michelle Mears says however, they remain confident that the measure will pass
"We're not afraid that it's going to affect the outcome, but we are perturbed when any entity that wants to anonymously try to imply that the library is doing something wrong, we feel like we really need to answer that in the public," Mears tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post.
The ballot measure will reduce the libraries tax levy from 31 to 28 cents, effectively removing the sunset that is on half of the current operating budget.
Mears says the ad campaign claims this is a forever tax, and half of the library’s operating budget is already a forever tax
"16 of our 31 cents is a permanent levy, and until or unless something changes that's kind of forever," Mears explains. "And so, they're objecting to the 15 cents that we have on sunset, removing the sunset portion of that."
Mears says removing the sunset is vitally important to helping the library have its full operating budget to help build a new library as well as run daily library operations.
Mears says their hope is the public remains confident in what they are doing, and says she's received a lot of positive support from the community
"People have responded to these postcards that this Teachers First group has sent out, and they were emailing me, calling me, bringing me in samples, and telling me how upset it made them that somebody was trying to attack the library," Mears says. "And so, we appreciate that support and that level of confidence that our residents have in the library."
The ballot proposal is to lower the library’s tax levy from 31 to 28 cents, removing the sunset on half of the budget.
Removing the sunset will allow the library to have a full operating budget, it will also help in building a new library near Faraon and Riverside Road, next to the new UMKC School of Medicine.