Only one step remains until York County is counted among the contractual partners that constitute the Williamsburg Regional Library.
The library’s Board of Trustees voted at its Wednesday meeting to approve a new operating contract that welcomes York County to the partnership that has stood between Williamsburg and James City County regarding access to services since the late 1970s.
The last hurdle is a vote by the York County Board of Supervisors, which has not yet been scheduled. Their next meeting is in July.
York County has been contributing money to the library for years, though the relationship wasn’t formally arranged in a contract until a memorandum of agreement was signed in 2009. The relationship extends library privileges to York County citizens, especially those who live in the upper portion of the county that is sequestered from lower York County by Cheatham Annex, the Yorktown Naval Weapons Station and Camp Peary. York County’s two libraries are in Yorktown and Tabb.
If the supervisors vote to approve York’s membership as a contractual partner, the municipalities and the library’s board will be able to move past renewing a contract every five years. The new contract will run indefinitely until one of the localities decides to withdraw, which would require that locality to provide two years notice in writing.
By joining the library as a contractual partner, York County citizens will be able to check out 32 items instead of the 20 to which they are restricted under the current arrangement. They will also be able to hold 12 items instead of five and have two interlibrary loans instead of one. The county will also receive a representative on the library’s board.
The new contract also calls for James City County to receive a new member on the board of trustees, pushing their representation to six members. Williamsburg has four members.
York County’s contribution to the library has climbed about 6 percent per year since 2009. The county contributed $425,000 that year, compared to the $536,553 allocated for the library in 2014 in the budget the York County Board of Supervisors passed in early May.
The new contract uses a funding mechanism based off of total circulation to each locality and the total costs facing the library after other sources, like state appropriations, are taken into account. Under the current arrangement, York County contributes about 8.5 percent of the library’s total funding. That number isn’t poised to radically change, according to numbers presented in the contract.
Building a new library for upper county citizens so York County would no longer be required to invest in the Williamsburg Regional Library is a costly proposition. An upper county library had been in the plans for York County for years, with county officials at one point considering trying to install it at the Marquis at Williamsburg shopping center, but those plans fell through. That library would have cost at least $4 million in addition to operating expenses and books.
“The citizens of district one made it abundantly clear that they weren’t interested in having a library built there and that they liked using the Williamsburg library,” said York County Library System director Kevin Smith in a March interview. “Our policymakers heard them and have maintained the contractual relationship.”
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York County Looks to Increase Residents’ Privileges at Williamsburg Regional Library
