Right now, the Multnomah County Library is facing a make-or-break moment. No institution in our community is more popular or better used. None is more vital at a time when people are struggling to adapt, learn new skills and advance in a dark economy.
Yet this summer, the five-year property-tax levy that supplies two-thirds of the library's budget will expire, creating a dilemma. Should the library limp forward by once again asking voters to renew a temporary levy (89 cents per $1,000 in assessed value)? Or is it time to call the fundamental question of the library's future survival -- the district question?
Everyone agrees that creation of service district with its own tax base and a certain amount of independence is the best possible move for the library -- someday. But when? County Chair Jeff Cogen announced Friday that he supports renewal of the levy for another three years, with the understanding that a vote to form a district would follow in 2014, if possible.
The technical term for this is "kicking the can down the road." But Cogen makes some good points. He argues that times are so bad that it would be too big a lift to ask voters to tax themselves more to create a library district.
As one of the leaders of the failed Portland Public Schools bond campaign, Cogen has had a recent brush with the mood of voters. However, one key difference between the school bond and the library "ask" is that creation of a library district would support the status quo, only be smarter than that.
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