Library Board Meeting Minutes: May 21, 2026

Scappoose Public Library Board of Directors
Regular Business Meeting
May 21, 2026
Library Meeting Room also broadcast on Zoom
7 PM

Minutes

1. Call to Order and Pledge of Allegiance
   The meeting was called to order at 7 PM. Attending were Board President Lisa Lewis, Vice President Johanna Myers, Board Members Johanna Myers, Liza Gerardo and Director Jeff Weiss. Elaine Nussbaum attended via Zoom. Karen Kessi also attended. Lisa led the group in the Pledge of Allegiance. 
2. Public Input
   Karen Kessi attended representing the Ballot Measure Committee. Katherine Hugill attended via Zoom. There was no public input. Katherine stated she was attending to observe. 
3. Approval of Minutes: April 16, 2026
   Jeff presented minutes from the April Budget Committee and the April Board Meeting. There were no corrections. Jolene made a motion to pass as written. Liza seconded. Motion passed unanimously. 
4. Consent Agenda
   1. Secretary-Treasurer’s Report
      Jeff presented the financial reports which included the April Financial Report and an additional report of fiscal year spending to our meeting date. The library is keeping within budget. Liza wanted to know how much we have spent so far on Summer Reading. Jeff said that the library spent nearly $1,000 this month for summer reading activity supplies and has paid some of the program vendors like OMSI and the Oregon Reptile Man. Jeff said that the performers for the Outdoor Festival are being paid by check in this month’s checks. Jeff said that All About Numbers made the American Express bill out to the wrong vendor, so that needs to be corrected and he will need to get a new check signed that is made out correctly and that will need to be signed separately. Jolene made a motion to pass the consent agenda. Johanna seconded. Motion passed.
   2. Presentation of Bills
5. Old Business
   1. Submitted and Approved Grants Progress
      Jeff presented a report of the sponsorships that have been paid and those that are still just pledges. Les Schwab, Port of Columbia County and T Mobile have not paid their pledges yet. The Port will pay within the next month. Liza asked if help is needed with collections. Jeff said not at this point, but he needs help hanging flyers for the event and we need volunteers for the Outdoor Festival. Jeff has applied for a Community Enhancement grant for Movies in the Park and has received an Oregon/America 250 award of $2,000 for Movies in the Park.
   2. Discussion of Potential Ballot Measure
      Karen Kessi presented the report from the Levy Committee. While results are not certified yet, The yes votes are leading the no votes by about 5% despite the other ballot measures in the county failing. Karen said that this demonstrates the good will the library has in the community. Results won’t be certified until June 15, but she feels it is unlikely that the remaining mail in votes will change the outcome. She said that the levy is a temporary levy, so the board will be facing another campaign in 5 years. Karen said she encourages the library to engage in more public relations in the work that goes on in the library for the community and engage the community more in the library. She said that the library did not see any organized resistance to our measure which is surprising because of the ballot measures this year which did have organized resistance. She said that tax measures rarely pass with large margins in Columbia County so the library must constantly prove its value to the community. She said that she and Virginia think the nonpartisan approach the campaign took was appropriate to the measure. There was no organized resistance to the levy. Karen said that she thinks the library should unpublish the levy campaign website. Jeff said the library cannot delete web pages by state law but could possibly unpublish them. There was little resistance to the levy in the community and among business owners who allowed flyers to be posted in their businesses. The Spotlight published all the letters of support submitted in the local newspaper. She encouraged the library to hold more public events in support of the 5-year levy. She also encouraged supporters to send personal messages of support in the future. Reactions to our Facebook posts were universally positive. The Friends of Scappoose Public Library sent out one mailing in support of the levy and the library sent out one factual card about the levy to registered voters in the district. A second mailer was planned but cancelled by FOSPL due to cost. Karen thanks all the committee members. Karen thanked all the members of the committee for their work and participation.
      1. Levy Committee presentation to Board
   3. Strategic Plan Next Steps
      Jeff reminded the board that the Strategic Plan meeting is coming up on the 30th of May from 9 AM to noon in the library meeting room. Jeff said that he will email out the existing long-range plan with notations on activities from that plan that are completed to the board. He said that the meeting room is reserved. He said they would go through the current plan and see what completed activities would be continued and what would be deemed complete. The answers and comments from the survey still need to be analyzed. Deja has said she does not have time to do the analysis. 98 surveys were completed by the public. Liza said that the Google documents can do percentage analysis for multiple-choice questions and create charts and response rankings. The free form answers would need a person to group and rank them. The group agreed that we need to be responsive to the needs and wants of the community. Liza requested that we have a projector at the meeting on the 30th. Jeff said that we needed to get the meeting notice out on the 22nd. 
      
      There were questions about the procedure on creating the final plan. Jeff said that in the past, the board has created an outline of the plan and staff will flesh it out with actions to fulfil the objectives of the outline. Then it goes back to the board for final approval. 
6. New Business
   1. Librarian’s report
      Jeff presented his report. Jeff said that circulation was slightly down again in April at 6688 but was up so far in May vs. 2025. April circulation in May 2025 was a record for Scappoose Library. St Helens circulated 4,580 items in April. Scappoose also circulated 1,480 eBooks in April. At the end of April, we had $380,000 in our treasury account and about $33,000 in our bank accounts. 
      
      Jeff asked the state elevator inspector about what we need to upgrade in our elevator to meet the new state code. He said that he thinks the elevator meets most of the new code. He offered to look at all proposed scopes of work and see what is necessary and what is not. He also said that because the elevator is 30 years old, getting replacement parts can be a problem for the existing elevator. Liza asked about who said the elevator needed a rebuild. Jeff said nearly every vendor we have used has said this, but the state inspector said we may not need a full rebuild. Jeff noted that the library replaced the relays this year which should help reliability. 
      
      There was discussion about the public computer that retained a personal password. Jeff said that he was able to finally delete it, but the process was different than usual with the Deep Freeze software because the password was not available in administration mode, only as a user. He said it is probably because Firefox is going around Deep Freeze for password retention. There was discussion about our new part-time employee Bryan who is well known in the community. Lisa asked if he had a background in libraries. Jeff said that he did not but was our second choice for the job originally. Jeff was asked about Viviana. Viviana found full-time work at Cedar Mill as the Head of Adult Services. 
      
      The Outdoor Festival was discussed along with the need for volunteers for it. Fliers need to get hung. There was discussion about the booths at the event. There was discussion about where to hang posters. There was agreement to get an inflatable for the event. The inflatables are quite heavy and will require a truck and multiple people to set up. Katherine asked to meet with Jeff on Friday at 11. There was discussion about continuing the festival after this year because the event is not really library oriented. It was decided that we would have that discussion later after the event. 
      
      Jeff presented the trackers and prizes for the upcoming Summer Reading events. 
      
      There was discussion around how the complaint about JJ was handled because Jeff shared the complaint with JJ when it was received causing JJ to quit volunteering. Liza wanted the complaint to be confidential until after the board meeting. Jeff said he presented it to JJ because he wanted her to make changes in the way she conducted events. Liza said that she had expected the complaint to remain confidential until after the board meeting. Lisa said that the usual procedure is for the director to handle complaints made by the public about staff and volunteers. Jeff said after he went over the complaint with JJ, her response was that it is how she hosts events and she is not changing. Lisa said that JJ is an entertainer and that is how she does her act. Jolene said that she doesn’t think JJ means to be hurtful to people when she hosts events. Johanna said that she didn’t think JJ means to be hurtful to the people attending events that what she says is just her style. Lisa said that she was surprised by how JJ reacted to the letter of complaint, but that was her decision and we may have just caught her on a bad day. Liza said that she didn’t think one piece of feedback warrants a decision by the board, but the board and the person need to be aware of the feedback.
   2. Oregon Health Authority Grant (Liza)
      It was decided not to pursue this grant as the lead because we do not have the expertise to accomplish the OHA goal. We could supply space for some other organization to house activities and could partner with another local agency on completing their grant.
7. Other Business
8. Future Agenda Suggestions
9. Board Comments
10. Adjourn
    The meeting was adjourned at 8:15 pm.

Scappoose Public Library Librarian’s Report 5-14-26

1. Staff Activities: 
   We are now on a fall schedule of programs
   • Weekly:
     • Tuesday night: RPG games
     • Tuesday AM: Music and Movement
     • Tuesday night: Fiber Friends
     • Wednesday morning: Food Bank Produce Distribution
     • Wednesday afternoon: Lego 
     • Thursday AM: Ukulele club 
     • Thursday night: Family board games
     • Friday: Storytime
   • Monthly groups:
     • Adult Book Club (fourth Thursdays)
     • Crafts for adults (first Monday)
     • Romance Book Club (second Monday)
     • Genre Book Club (fourth Monday)
     • Writers group (third Sunday)
     • Teen Art (first Tuesday)
     • Tween Art (third Tuesday)
     • Barbie Club (first Saturday)
     • Pokémon Club (first Thursday)
     • Homeschool Meetup (second Thursday)
   • We will be moving to Summer Reading programming in June. The first two weeks in June will be youth programming free to make time for school visits.
   • Special events:
     March: Homeschool Boat Design, Seed to Supper concluded, Adult Craft Night: Bag Charms.
     The April adult book club title is The Rent Collector by Cameron Wright.  The April Romance book is Ice Breaker by Hannah Grace. The True Crime book club is The Five by Hallie Rubenhold.
2. Statistics: We circulated 6,668 items in April, almost 600 less than last April. The circulation loss was again in Children’s books. eBook circulation increased from 1,343 to 1,480. St Helens circulated 4580 items in April. Circulation for May so far is above 2025 levels. One interesting thing is that when the newspaper articles came out about budget cuts in St. Helens, circulation there spiked up for 2 or 3 weeks, but now it seems to have gone back down.
3. Budget: At the end of April 2026, we had $378,120,466 in our treasury account and $33,226 in our Inroads accounts. At the end of April 2025, we had $371,861 in our treasury account and $29,659 in our Inroads accounts. We seem to be holding our own with income vs spending, but we are not accumulating money like we have in past years. 
4. Ballot Measure: Karen Kessi will be presenting a wrap up at board meeting whether it passes or not. Turnout looks heavier than usual at this point in the election. According to Don Clack, 40% of the final voters voted in the last 4 days of the election. At the beginning of this week, nearly 30% of registered voters have voted in the primary.
5. Strategic Plan: We will be having our retreat to work on the Strategic Plan Saturday, May 30 at the library from 9 AM to 12 PM. 
6. Tax Issues: Dyno Noble is still in court. Cascade Paper has filed another remonstrance, and we have $3,000 being withheld because of those issues
7. Grants: We received $11,000 from the city for summer events. The Port has pledged $1,500. Bryan Rosenthal and his wife donated $1,500. US Bank has pledged $1,500 for summer programs. I signed the agreement with the Oregon Historical Society for our America 250 grant. 
8. Food Drive: We are still getting weekly produce deliveries from the Columbia Pacific Food Bank and bread from the Senior Center Bread Store. We often get a Friday delivery of bread in addition to the Tuesday bread pickup.
9. Janitor: The new crew is doing better than when they started, at least for my observation.  
10. Elevator: I was here when Dan Jones, our state inspector, was here to inspect the elevator last month. While he was here, I had him look at the elevator and asked him what was out of compliance with the new state code. He thought it was compliant or mostly compliant with the new code. I told him about having two different vendors say we needed a full rebuild to comply with the new code. Dan said he didn’t think it was necessary and that this has been a problem he has been fielding calls and complaints on. Dan offered to go over any written proposals we get from repair companies and tell us what of the bid is not needed. He did say to keep in mind that it is a 30-year-old elevator and finding repair parts in the event of a breakdown may be difficult.
11. Comcast Issues: We had one 1-hour outage this last month and another overnight outage that may have been a power failure.
12. IT: I have discovered that even with Deep Freeze software, after a recent Firefox upgrade, patrons are somehow able to store passwords in the browser. I have seen this once and was able to manually delete it. I don’t know if there is a fix. I also don’t know why a user would answer “yes” if a public computer asked to retain their password.
13. Staff: Bryan has finished training. We have him working on bookkeeping and application checking which has fallen behind.
14. Outdoor Festival: The Outdoor Festival is 3 weeks away. I have ordered the gift bags and will be printing the other publicity early next week. I am waiting to hear back from three performers and if I don’t have confirmations from them, I’m going to print and promote what I have. I’m waiting to hear back from Pyxis the Unicorn (a miniature horse with makeup), the Oregon Bird Man, and Mr. Vale’s Math Class. The event will run from 9 AM to 3 PM this year and be similar to last year. We will have 2nd Street blocked off again for the Sherrif’s display. Because we are running concurrent with the Farm Market, we will have people all over. The kids area is behind the Watts House again, so another good reason to close the whole street. We will be giving away kayaks and camping equipment at 2:30 again and the native dancers will appear at 1 PM in front of Watts House. The Watts House will be open that day. We will be having an art competition. Cindy Ede will oversee kids making art at the festival, but we are going to roll out publicity before so kids can work on entries before the festival. We will be awarding prizes by age categories again. 
15. Summer Reading: I’ll be distributing Summer Reading trackers at our meeting and going over how we are planning the program to work at this meeting.