Locals want library director investigated

About a dozen irate White-fish residents told the Flathead County Library Board on Aug. 27 they were unhappy with the management direction of the county library director.

The residents formally requested that director Kim Crowley be investigated to see if disciplinary action was justified — and at least one resident said he would initiate a campaign to remove Whitefish library from the county system.

Jake Heckathorn reminded the board that the people of Whitefish raised the money to build and furnish their local library, and other than some computers, the microfiche machine and other equipment, the city owns the entire facility. He said it might take some time, but he would lead an effort to make the Whitefish library independent from the county.

Heckathorn was also unhappy with Crowley's actions with regard to Whitefish head librarian Joey Kositzky.

"The community built the library, but Joey Kositzky built the library," he told the board.

Heckathorn questioned what he believes is the library board's focus on building a new main library in Kalispell, an "edifice to egos," at the expense of the valley's branch libraries.

Two days earlier, the library board unveiled conceptual designs by three local architectural firms for a 52,000-square-foot building at three possible sites in Kalispell. Board members acknowledged at the end of their Aug. 27 meeting that the new building could cost $12 million to $18 million without furnishings.

"You think if you build a big glass-fronted building that people will come from the hinterlands, but they won't," Heckathorn said.

Referring to an earlier public comment by Patsy Treat about the need for a branch library in Evergreen, and an offer of free land there, Heckathorn promised to look into that.

Heckathorn also addressed the claim that Crowley had ordered Kositzky to move an American flag donated by the Veterans of Foreign Wars from the library into the community room "because it was clutter."

"Our nation's flag may be clutter in your library, but it's not in ours," Heckathorn, a veteran, told the board, adding that he might ask the VFW to "come down here about this."

The flag was moved back into the library the next day.

Some of the allegations against Crowley arose after Jocelyn "Skeeter" Johnston, who works at the Whitefish library, was suspended without pay by Crowley following a July staff meeting in Kalispell.

According to former board member Marge Fisher, who was present at the meeting, Johnston refused to participate in a "kudos' game, saying other hard-working library workers should be recognized. Crowley followed Johnston out to the parking lot, where an argument ensued.

In a lengthy statement to the board, Anne Moran, another former board member, suggested Johnston's suspension was improper and didn't follow acceptable management practices. Since Johnston was "off the clock" at the time and the incident was not something for which an employee could be suspended under county policy, why did library board take up the matter at their Aug. 7 meeting, Moran asked. And why did the board focus on Johnston rather than Crowley, she asked.

The statement was signed by Moran, Fisher, Heckathorn and former library board members Jerry Hanson and Connie Heckathorn. Both Moran and Hanson left the board when it dissolved last summer following a bitter dispute involving library politics.

Among the other "micromanagement" decisions made by Crowley that the Whitefish residents oppose is ordering Kositzky to take down the no-eating sign. Crowley told the Pilot that food and drink is allowed in all other county library facilities. In any case, she said, the intent is to allow patrons to consume bistro coffee and bottled water, not pizzas and burgers.

Crowley would not address personnel issues, but she explained that the county library system supports branch libraries. She noted that plans are underway to create a new library for Columbia Falls in the former First Citizens Bank building on Nucleus Avenue and that remodeling at the Bigfork branch library was recently completed.

She also addressed the claim that books were disappearing from the Whitefish library. She said the county libraries belong to a network of libraries across the state, and books were loaned out to patrons who requested them first. When they were returned, they would end up where they originated, she said.

Library board president Jane Lopp said the board would take up issues raised by the Whitefish residents at the board's September meeting.