Over 18 months after starting the process of revising its agreement with Fontana Regional Library, the Macon County Board of Commissioners quickly and without comment approved a new agreement with minimal changes at its Nov. 12 meeting.
With Macon County’s signature, all four necessary parties – Macon, Jackson, Swain and the FRL board – have approved the new inter-local agreement, officially enacting these changes. Swain and Jackson counties approved the changes in August, with the FRL board following suit in September.
The biggest change from the current agreement is that it transfers FRL board appointment powers from each county’s library board to each county’s Board of Commissioners. The county library board can still make recommendations to the commissioners. Other changes include modifying FRL board membership so terms are only three years instead of four and that no member can serve more than two full terms.
The inter-local agreement codifies verbal public comments, which will last up to 30 minutes at the start of each FRL board meeting. There’s also a provision to add additional public comment time at the end of each meeting if the 30-minute time limit is up. This does not apply to county library board meetings, and each of those boards would have to approve their own public comment changes.
Recommendations of amendments to the agreement now go to the county commissioners, not the county library boards.
The agreement clarifies that Hudson Library of Highlands, North Carolina, Inc., owns all the Hudson Library’s materials, furnishings and fixtures that the private organization has acquired. Other Hudson Library materials that FRL acquired are owned by FRL.
If a local government entity withdraws from the agreement, any furniture and fixtures purchased by Friends of the Library would remain with their respective library, as would books and audiovisual materials.
Some other changes deal with transparency, annual budgets, audits and meeting videos posted online.
The approval of the agreement comes a year after Macon County approved its version of the inter-local agreement, which was never voted on by any other board.
After months of inaction going into 2024, the Jackson County commissioners pushed for a new inter-local agreement, eventually crafted by Jackson County attorney John Kubis. At the Aug. 20 Jackson County commissioners meeting, Kubis said the process of working with Macon, Swain and FRL “broke down” and they primarily worked with Swain and FRL afterward.
The FRL board was waiting for the inter-local agreement to pass before voting on its new bylaws, which Library Director Tracy Fitzmaurice said would “tighten up” the rules.