A primary reason I started The Stark County Political Report on March 12, 2008 was to foster and encourage processes like that culminated at the September 27th meeting of the Stark County District Library Board of Trustees (SCDL-BOT).
At last evening's meeting, the SCDL-BOT demonstrated that it does hear its constituents.
Though board members are not elected officials, they still are accountable (another primary goal of the SCPR) to the citizens of Stark County and in particular each of those parts of Stark County which are served with a branch of the library.
SCDL Tena Wilson executive director took a lot of flak for entertaining the thought that on the board deciding that it was uneconomical to repair the 25 year old Jackson library facility over a year ago, she had a potential "better idea" for moving forward.
Her idea for the future of a library facility in Jackson was embodied in her recommendation that the board lease a storefront in the township and enhance it with 24/7 technologies dubbed "the Smart Store."
The storefront was billed at the time as being a "temporary" move and that the long term plan was to build a new library.
As time went on and the Jackson library was torn down, Jackson library lovers became suspicious that a new Jackson branch would never be built and started a social media site called SAVE OUR LIBRARY to marshal community resources into an effort to ensure that the original promise would be kept.
On Saturday past, the SCPR did a blog in response to a plea by a SAVE OUR LIBRARY participant which blog has a theme that Jacksonians can and should get a new library building as promised while Director Wilson could also realize her dream of implementing her Smart Store ideas to make a new Jackson facility all the better.
The SCPR gets very good numbers, day-in, day-out and Saturday's Jackson library story ranks right up there with some of the higher visited blogs over this blogs' nearly 10 year history.
The focus of the SAVE OUR LIBRARY movement was to have the promise made become a promise kept at yesterday's board of trustees meeting.
And, due to the efforts of the SAVE OUR LIBRARY movement, the board did definitively decide to set in motion action to fulfill the original promise.
The Report took video of the entire proceeding last night.
Starting with the best part insofar as the Jackson library supporters are concerned is the announcement by Director Wilson of her change of heart in her recommendation to the board.
The entire board meeting which lasted about 13 minutes is posted at the end of this blog.
The SCPR spoke with Jackson fiscal officer Randy Gonzalez and board president Steven Pittman after the meeting concluded.
Jackson citizens should be pleased that Fiscal Officer Gonzalez and the three trustees (Pizzino, Hawke and Walters) rallied to the cause of getting the SCDL Board of Trustees to follow up on the promise made to rebuild the Jackson Branch Library.
Here are the reactions of three Jacksonians as expressed to the SCPR at the conclusion of the meeting.
The Stark County Political Report congratulates Director Wilson, the board of trustees, Jackson Township elected officials for having worked together to achieve the "win-win" success that came to fruition in this meeting.
Here is the video of the entire meeting.
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