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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Spokane County Library District candidates down to two

Math tutor Charissa Cooley works with a student in the upper level of the Spokane Valley Library Wednesday, March 26, 2014. (Jesse Tinsley / The Spokesman-Review)
By Caroline Hammett The Spokesman-Review

Only two candidates remain in consideration to lead the Spokane County Library District.

Cindy Moore, a former library director from Wyoming, is vying with Patrick Roewe, Spokane County’s deputy director, to head an administration with jurisdiction over a constellation of libraries in the system.

Executive Director Nancy Ledeboer will step down on Sept. 1 after five years in the position.

The district announced Thursday that one of the three original finalists, Brett Lear, the former director of the Sonoma County Library in California, withdrew his application.

The Spokane County Library District contains 10 full-service branches, plus a small branch called the Bookend. The district has a budget of about $11 million.

The library district will host a public reception for citizens to meet Moore and Roewe at 4:30 p.m. Thursday in the Fireside Lounge at CenterPlace, 2426 N. Discovery Place, in Spokane Valley.

Patrick Roewe

Roewe, 38, came to Spokane in 2007 to be a librarian in the Spokane County Library District and has been in senior management since 2009.

He emphasized “continuity without complacency” when speaking of the future of the library district.

For a long time, he explained, libraries have performed a constant role in learning and research. But now, the advancement of technology allows researchers to access the internet in place of archivists and librarians.

Roewe wants to keep the district moving dynamically with the times.

As deputy director, he said he focuses on “turning outward” and ensuring the libray engages with the greater community of Spokane.

The Spokane County Library District is one of 10 in the nation involved in Libraries Transforming Communities, a program funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Roewe has led the program in Spokane for the past few years.

By bringing the “talents and skills of a library to community issues” and by “showing we are fully integrated” with the community, he said, the libraries will reinstate themselves as an “active collaborating agent.”

He earned a master’s degree in library and information science from the University of Washington and a bachelor’s in English from Gonzaga University.

Roewe said he is “excited for the opportunity to serve the community.”

Cindy Moore

Until November 2016, Moore was the county librarian at Albany County Public Library in Laramie, Wyoming.

Moore, 59, said when she started the job, the finances of the library, which has three locations, were in trouble as the state’s critical “mineral money,” as Moore called it, stopped flowing.

Mineral royalties from oil and gas make significant contributions to public services in Wyoming.

According to Moore, the library was defaulting on loans for payroll before she came, but it never took a loan out for payroll while she was there. After a nine-year staff pay freeze, she negotiated a 9 percent raise and was also able to increase the size of the county’s budget.

She said she retired because her husband was retiring and they wanted to pursue a life on the road in their motor home.

“I loved working there,” she said, referring to the Albany library.

But some who worked under her leadership describe Moore’s tenure as tumultuous and say she created a hostile working environment. At a library board meeting about five months before she resigned, many comments from library staff criticizing her leadership were read aloud.

“I think she was a disaster to our library,” said Kathy Marquis, who worked at the library and is now the deputy state archivist for the Wyoming State Library.

Marquis said Moore had a “paranoid management style.”

Moore suggested complaints about her management may be the result of her forcing the staff to adhere to financial standards.

“Maybe I instilled fear in them about the budget,” Moore said. She emphasized that she felt “very strongly about adhering to the budget – that’s taxpayer money.”

Moore and Marquis referred to Albany County Public Library as one of the poorest in Wyoming. Staff, Marquis explained, stayed for the community, not the pay. But as the work atmosphere deteriorated under Moore’s leadership, people began to leave.

Marquis worked at the library from 2002 until 2015 and admitted that she “left because of (Moore).”

Paul Heimer, executive director of United Way of Albany County, worked with Moore on a tax measure.

Heimer insisted on staying “factual” and not venturing too far into “hearsay,” but he stated that he thought the board of Albany County Public Library “could’ve made a better hire.”

Moore spent almost four years directing the Albany County Public Library.

Heimer explained “originally, she had a good administrative assistant, and things were going well” for the library, but the assistant eventually left.

Moore applied for the position in the Spokane County Library District because she is impressed by the administration’s strategies. If she becomes the director, she said, she would seek a continuation of Spokane’s philosophy regarding the future of libraries.

She earned a master’s degree in library and information science from the University of Wisconsin and bachelor’s degrees in biology and education from the University of Wyoming.