Like many Flathead County residents, I have been disgusted by the information coming out regarding the ImagineIF Library Board and the Flathead County commissioners who seated them. What we’re learning is dangerous, it’s illegal and it’s antithetical to my values as an American. But just as I was digesting that information, the commissioners said, “hold my beer” and in a slimy move asked the state to intervene and rescue Library Board trustees from their terrible, yet very well-informed, decision to forego $35,731 of annual state funding until a properly credentialed library director is in place. Their rationale leans on the aggregate education of currently employed staff satisfying the requirement and I’m not having it. To the commissioners: Those are not your coattails to ride. Your board had multiple chances to ensure that $35,731 came to Flathead County and against recommendations from county HR, from the public, from library staff, and the recruiter your board hired to find a director, your board chose an unqualified person. You lost our community $35,731 and the plan to recover that loss of funding is to whine to the governor’s office.
It doesn’t make sense that a commissioner who supposedly believes in local control of government would need to rely on the governor’s office to bail them out. It doesn’t make sense that Trustees Adams, Roedel, and Ingram would knowingly pass up $35,731 of annual funding in the name of “fiscal responsibility.” It doesn’t make sense that the board would offer a director level position to an individual whose highest level of completed education is a high school diploma. It doesn’t make sense until you realize that it’s not about practical decision-making or fiscal responsibility. It’s about destabilization. It’s about weakening something that is so strong it scares them. It’s about abuse of power, and if not for a community who has demanded accountability, it may have gone unnoticed until it was too late. But it’s not too late. Talk to your neighbors. Join an action committee. Love our librarians. And then, when it’s time to vote, remember this abuse of power and vote out Commissioners Brad Abell, Randy Brodehl and Pam Holmquist. Our library is not “modest,” and neither is the community that surrounds it. If they don’t get that, they need to get out.
Kim Anderson
Kalispell