After months of construction and years of planning, the new Nantahala Community Library is set to open to the public on Monday, July 22.
Fontana Regional Library Director Tracy Fitzmaurice gave the update during her report at the July 9 Board of Trustees meeting. Fitzmaurice said BalsamWest completed the fiber connections to the new building. The carpet is installed and the walls are painted. Frontier is scheduled to install the phone lines this week. Fitzmaurice said there was no confirmation on when the library’s furnishings, paid for by Macon County, would be installed.
The current library, next to Nantahala School, closed this week so staff can transition. The new library will be 1,200 square feet. The Nantahala Community Group will operate in the other half of the building with a shared bathroom.
The new library, located at 36B White Oak Lane in Topton, will be open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday-Saturday. The library will offer the same services and resources including Wi-Fi computer access, printing and copying, and access to print and digital materials for all ages.
There will be receptions at each of the six libraries for FRL’s 80th anniversary celebration. The Nantahala Community Library reception will coincide with the next Macon County Public Library Board of Trustees meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 6. The reception will be from 2-4 p.m. and the meeting will start at 4 p.m.
Public comment gets green light
By a unanimous vote with two absences, verbal public comment was formally adopted for FRL regional board meetings.
The change only applies to the FRL regional board. Fitzmaurice confirmed after the meeting that each FRL advisory board, such as the Macon County Public Library’s Board of Trustees, would have to adopt those rules.
Starting at its Sept. 10 meeting, the FRL board will allow at least 30 minutes of public comment, with each speaker allowed three minutes. People can sign up before the meeting and must reside in one of the three FRL counties – Macon, Jackson or Swain. Groups wishing to speak must designate a spokesperson and demonstrations, such as clapping, cheering or booing, are not allowed. The procedures also forbid the board from dialoguing or debating with the public speakers.
The FRL board members did not discuss the public comment change at its July 9 meeting before approval. Board Chair Margaret Carton, Secretary Debbie Tallent, Tony Monnat, Ellen Snodgrass, Boyd Sossamon and Wood Lovell voted “aye” while Vice Chair Cynthia Womble and Rebekkah Watkins were absent.
Fitzmaurice said public commenting procedures were presented at a May 29 meeting with officials from all three counties. Commissioners present recommended several changes, including having the 30-minute public comment period at the start of the meeting rather than the end.
There has been no verbal public comment allowed at any regional board meetings since February 2023 after a lawyer discovered there were no public comment provisions in the FRL bylaws. This came after contentious meetings where audience members said the library offered children’s books with sexual content, mainly focusing on LGBTQIA+ works.
Fitzmaurice said the regional agreement and bylaws are still under revision and that interim Jackson County attorney Raymond Large is handling putting those together. A final draft could be presented in the next few weeks.
These revisions come after a request by the Macon County Board of Commissioners in April 2023 to review the regional agreement following public comments both for and against the library’s policies.
Following up on a request by Macon County library board member Leah Gaston, Fitzmaurice said FRL is working on making the Macon board’s meetings available online.
During the meeting, Fitzmaurice told the board the state continues to go over revisions to the juvenile library card system.
Carton, Womble and Tallent were unanimously approved as board chair, vice-chair and secretary, respectively, for the next year.