Salem dissolves library board

Due to a legal oversight, the city of Salem is reorganizing the Board of Trustees for the Salem Crew Public Library.

At its Aug. 2 meeting, the City Council passed a pair of resolutions to address the situation.

The first resolution recognized that the city’s existing library ordinance was invalid because it had never been approved by a ballot measure. A new ordinance will be on the Nov. 2 municipal election ballot.

The second resolution recognized that all sitting members of the library board had not been appointed according to a valid ordinance and state code, which calls for the mayor to make appointments to the library board. The resolution dissolved the current library board.

Because that leaves the library with no governing body, the library is closed until a new Board of Trustees is appointed.

City Clerk Haylee Stecker said that the original ordinance setting up the board was not valid because it was never approved by the city’s voters.

“We found out over time that some things were not done right,” Stecker said.

A 2017 audit found that library funds should be maintained by the city and not the library board.

After learning that stock certificates originally gifted to the city had been transferred to the Friends of the Salem Crew Public Library, a private nonprofit group, without formal City Council approval, the city decided there should be an audit of the library’s finances to make sure there has been full compliance with the recommendations from the 2017 audit.

Stecker said that the audit by the State Auditor’s Office is currently underway and that the final report is not expected to be released for several months.

In the meantime, the city has been seeking interested residents to serve on the new board.

In a news release, City Council member Mary Hoyer said that the council is “hoping to attract a diverse board that can work together to fulfill the mission of the library, reflecting the needs and wants of the city itself and the larger community that the Library serves.”

On Monday, Hoyer said, “We appear to have a very good group of people interested in joining the new library board.”