Amelia Shelley has officially been hired as executive director of the Fort Vancouver Regional Library District.
The board of trustees voted 6-0 Wednesday afternoon to approve the contract with Shelley, who has been executive director of the Garfield County Public Library District in Rifle, Colo., since 2007.
Shelley will start work on Oct. 12. The vacancy was created when Nancy Tessman announced her retirement after three years as Fort Vancouver’s executive director.
After the brief meeting, board chair Jane Higgins said that Shelley’s current job as an executive director — comparable to her new position at Fort Vancouver — was a factor in the selection.
“She leads a large, complex district that includes several municipalities,” Higgins said.
Shelley agreed that her present position should make for a smooth transition into her new library system, which manages facilities in three counties.
“I think it will suit me very well,” Shelley said by phone from Colorado. In Garfield County, she’s been working with several cities and city councils on a lot of issues, Shelley said.
“That’s a pretty good start.”
Some of the top items on her to-do list will feature community-based initiatives to build new libraries in Ridgefield, Washougal and Woodland.
“The three facilities projects will be starting points,” Shelley said.
Shelley was tabbed as Fort Vancouver’s preferred candidate at an Aug. 17 meeting of the trustees. The other finalists were Peter Bromberg, associate director for public services, Salt Lake County Library Services, based in West Jordan, Utah, and Jon Worona, San Jose (Calif.) Public Library division manager.
Shelley’s 17 years as a library administrator include 10 years as youth and outreach services manager at Laramie County Library in Wyoming.
Shelley oversaw a $28 million capital effort that built six new library facilities — on time and under budget — from 2009 to 2013. Shelley also had to deal with a funding shortfall because of a change in Colorado’s tax policy.
In the Fort Vancouver library system, Shelley will be working with a more dependable financial footing, based on property taxes.
“There are all kinds of models” to fund libraries, Higgins said. “I’m not saying ours is better or worse, but it is predictable.”
Shelley will earn $145,000 a year. That’s what Tessman would be making if she had accepted the across-the-board pay raises given to all the district’s employees, Higgins said. Tessman has been earning $135,000 a year.
The contract does not have a defined time period. The trustees or the executive director can end the contract at any time, Higgins said.
The Fort Vancouver executive director oversees a 4,200-square-mile district that includes 12 community libraries and three library express/library connection locations.
