Judge denies library request
As control of the Whitefish Library transitions from county to city, many books have already been moved out and shelves sit empty Wednesday afternoon.
Flathead District Judge Stewart Stadler on Friday denied the Whitefish Library Association’s request for an injunction and temporary restraining order that would prevent Flathead County from taking possession of books when the library is transferred from the county to the city.
Stadler also ordered the Flathead County Library Board to allow Whitefish representatives to access the remaining 27,000 volumes remaining at the library to compile an inventory.
Both sides were told to attend a joint conference as soon as possible — splitting the cost of mediation — to settle on other key complaints outlined in a lawsuit filed by the Whitefish group against the county and library officials.
The controversy arose when county employees removed 6,380 books from the library after Whitefish decided it wanted to operate the facility. Stadler presided over a hearing Thursday before issuing his decision Friday morning.
The Whitefish City Council voted in November 2010 to terminate the city’s agreement with Flathead County at the end of June in favor of an independently operated city library.
Flathead library officials subsequently removed the books and announced they would close the facility June 18.
The Whitefish Library Association had asked for a temporary restraining order, a provisional injunction and a permanent injunction to ensure that all the materials that were housed in the Whitefish facility on March 1 remain in the building when the transfer takes place.
They want the library to remain open through June 30, as called for in the operating agreement.
Stadler ruled that the county could close the library June 18 in order to transition to Whitefish by July 1.
The library association also sought assurance from the court that the county be compelled not to interfere with the changeover of bar codes and computer identification, so that on July 1 all the materials will be under the control of Whitefish library personnel.
They also asked that all materials purchased for the Whitefish Branch Library over the years be returned to the Whitefish building, and the library association be paid for anything that was destroyed.
About 5,000 items in the Whitefish branch library have been put on “hold” because of concerns about how to inventory those items as the county stops operating the facility in advance of the city of Whitefish opening its own library on July 1.
When an item is placed on hold, the patron can’t renew the item for a longer checkout and no one else can check it out, former county library employee Joey Kositzky said during testimony Thursday.
The county has operated the branch library in Whitefish since 1976 when the county and city entered into that arrangement. Prior to 1976, the city of Whitefish had its own library.
The county uses a $2.3 million building owned by the city of Whitefish as the library. The county doesn’t pay rent for the building, according to the complaint.