Stephen Vance, Staff
After seeing small audiences at their three 2017 municipal budget public engagement sessions in November, Meaford’s council finally drew a large crowd to a budget meeting, however only one topic was on the minds of the dozens of residents who filled the council chamber and overflowed into the lobby on December 5 – the Owen Sound North Grey Union Public Library contract.
The Owen Sound North Grey Union Public Library (OSNGUPL) sent an email to residents of the former Township of Sydenham and issued a media release on November 25, to announce that the OSNGUPL had accepted the notice of termination by the Meaford Public Library Board of the service contract that allowed Sydenham residents full membership with the OSNGUPL. The Meaford Library Board had been seeking a short term agreement in order to allow time to accumulate data to determine if the price of the contract, roughly $120,000 per year, is fair. The MPL would also have liked to see all Meaford residents have full access to the OSNGUPL, not just residents of the former Township of Sydenham. The OSNGUPL, on the other hand, insisted that the contract was fair and that the amount charged to Meaford was in line with what the other partners in the OSNGUPL pay.
Sydenham resident and OSNGUPL user Susan Pouget addressed council on behalf of the large audience of Sydenham residents.
“I know that you’re quite aware of our concerns, you’ve heard them through emails, you’ve heard them through phone calls,” Pouget told council.
Pouget thanked council for ensuring the funding for the service contract that allows Sydenham residents full use of the OSNGUPL remained in the 2017 budget, in spite of the MPL having terminated the contract, and she noted that the gesture of good faith on the part of council was appreciated. She indicated that council was optimistic that the situation would be resolved, however she took issue with how Meaford’s library board has been handling the negotiations.
There were still five years remaining on a ten-year service contract when the MPL asked to renegotiate the terms of a service contract. Meaford council has left the funding for the contract in the 2017 budget in hopes that a resolution can be found.
Among the concerns expressed, Pouget questioned why the MPL feels it necessary to obtain data from the OSNGUPL beyond the list of cardholders provided annually.
“The Meaford library is now requesting frequency of cardholder use. It’s difficult to understand what the purpose of that is for,” said Pouget. “How is it going to effect the value of the contract? Are they going to apply a frequency threshold so that if you only use the library once, twice, or five times a year then you are not considered an active cardholder? If this is the case, then are they going to apply the same logic to the users of the Meaford library?”
Pouget also noted that the Meaford library defines active library cardholders as those who have used the library at least once every two years, while the OSNGUPL defines an active cardholder as someone who has used their library at least once per year.
Also noted by Pouget was the fact that roughly 28 percent of Meaford’s population resides in Sydenham, however the cost of the service contract with the OSNGUPL to allow Sydenham residents full use of the Owen Sound Library represents just 18 percent of the total library services funding in the 2017 budget.
“This does not seem to be fiscally unbalanced,” suggested Pouget.
On behalf of her fellow Sydenham residents, Pouget asked council to consider reinstating the terms and conditions of the contract that was recently terminated, and she suggested that a renewed contract spanning the five years remaining on the previous contract could be negotiated in order to allow all Meaford residents full access to the OSNGUPL. The MPL has suggested that would not greatly increase the number of users of the OSNGUPL from Meaford, and she noted that such a move would also ensure that students living in Meaford but going to school in Owen Sound would have access to the Owen Sound library, which they currently do not have.
Pouget also suggested that council could then lobby Grey County and municipalities within the county to support a county-wide library service that would eliminate boundary issues.
“This is the only way to serve the residents in Grey County with a state of the art, equitable, seamless, and affordable library service,” suggested Pouget.
Pouget received a lengthy applause at the conclusion of her comments to council, and Mayor Barb Clumpus thanked her for a “very good presentation.”
“We value that input. We certainly understand your passion, we understand what a library means to each and every one of you, as it does to each and every one of the residents of the Municipality of Meaford. This is a very emotional issue, we understand that, we get that, and we are working very hard to balance that passion and to balance how we move forward in terms of being cost effective, cost efficient, and providing library services for all. That is the commitment of this council,” Clumpus told the audience.
