Library levy trailing, but margin ‘razor’ thin

Go figure: The Fort Vancouver Regional Library District’s property tax levy measure is a real page-turner.

Driven by a narrow “No” vote margin in Clark County, offset by strong support in Skamania and Klickitat counties, the proposed levy hike trailed by 270 votes out of 65,552 counted on Tuesday — a margin of 50.2 percent to 49.8 percent.

That means library district Executive Director Bruce Ziegman and others will hang tight, awaiting ballot updates due later today, and perhaps longer.

“It’s a razor’s edge,” Ziegman said Tuesday night, as a hopeful celebration with library boosters on Vancouver’s Officers’ Row turned anxious. “There’s a long way to go, a lot of votes to count,” he told supporters.

It was an odd turn, after word first came from Klickitat County: Voters there backed the measure by a resounding 62.6 percent.

Soon after, Skamania County tallied a 53.4 percent “Yes” vote.

Woodland-area voters in Cowlitz County were voting “No” by 53.4 percent, but produced only a 36-vote gap.

The real shocker was in Clark County — where privately commissioned polling in January had shown strongest levy support. The measure trailed Tuesday by nearly 1,500 votes, 51.3 percent to 48.7 percent.

Ziegman, library district trustee Merle Koplan and others said the lousy economy was clearly to blame.

Not once during extensive campaigning did they hear criticism of library service, they said.

“We thought the economy would be gradually improving, and it’s not,” Ziegman said of trustees’ decision in May to ask voters to boost the levy to the maximum 50 cents per $1,000 assessed value allowed by state law. “We know that’s what’s weighing on the public’s mind.”

“It was not anti-library,” Koplan said. “It’s the taxes.”

Prior elections give library boosters ample hope. In those cases, support often crept higher when late ballots cast were tallied following election night.

For instance, support for what turned out to be a losing construction bond request in September 2005 gained more than 3 percentage points following the initial vote count, Ziegman noted.

This time, the margin is just 0.4 of a percentage point.

At stake is restoration of full hours and days of operation at 13 branch libraries, starting next spring.

Service days and hours were cut across all branches in early 2009, in response to a sharp decline in some operating revenues. Layoffs and other staffing reductions also were made.

Next year’s one-time infusion of about $3 million in new revenue also would replenish noticeably thinning collections of books and other library items.

Officials badly want the $38 million downtown Vancouver Community Library to open in mid-2011 with a full, seven-days-a-week schedule. Should the measure fail, it’s probable the district’s flagship branch will lose an additional day from a current six-day schedule, Ziegman said.

Only the popular but small branch library at Westfield Vancouver Mall now operates all seven days.

Should it pass, the measure will increase Clark County property tax rates about 8 cents per $1,000 assessed value in 2011. That’s $16 more for a home worth $200,000.

This was FVRL’s first levy request since voters backed a similar measure in 1993. But, the district’s tax rate stood at the maximum 50 cents as recently as 2001. It dropped steadily, to 33 cents in 2008, while Clark County’s property values soared.

The rate should decline again after 2011, if the housing market and assessed values rebound.