The Columbia Heights Public Library will open its meeting rooms for rent to all groups, reversing a recent decision that blocked a local DFL Party group from renting space there last month.
Columbia Heights reopens library meeting rooms to all groups after barring DFL gathering
The political group had regularly reserved the library's community room before being denied last month.
March 11, 2020 at 3:01AM
The City Council on Monday voted unanimously to update the library's use policy, affirming Library Director Renee Dougherty's view that it should be open to all.
"This little kerfuffle was a nice reminder that this is what libraries do: They provide space, they provide access and they provide lifelong education," she said. "And if we need to amend our policies to make sure that continues, then we'll continue to do that work."
Members of a DFL group in Senate District 41 were told last month they could no longer rent the large community room at the city-owned library. The library's long-standing facility use policy allowed only residents or nonprofits to reserve meeting space, and City Manager Kelli Bourgeois said political groups were not nonprofits.
The DFL group, which had regularly reserved the room for meetings, was troubled by the abrupt change excluding them. Bourgeois said she was asked to interpret the policy and found the library was not enforcing its own rules on reservations, and that the council needed to update the policy if it wanted to change to open use.
Council President Nick Novitsky said the library board wrote the policy but wasn't enforcing it.
"It appears some of these rules the library board made up aren't even being followed … and that's what brought us here," he said.
The inconsistency wasn't brought to the council's attention until Bourgeois, who discussed the issue with City Attorney Jim Hoeft, became aware that the existing policy put limits on use of the library's meeting rooms.
City leaders and the library board will revisit the issue of room reservation fees, now $25 per hour. Dougherty thinks the fees limit accessibility for groups lacking money to reserve space.
Columbia Heights resident Theresa Strike, who belongs to the DFL group, said she opposed across-the-board rental fees for using the community room during library hours.
"Economics should never be a barrier to using a public library; it is antithetical to the concept of the public library," she said.
Jon Rehlander of Fridley, another member of the DFL group, said the group was willing to pay a rental fee but questioned whether Columbia Heights should charge when he said most metro libraries don't.
"This is the only time it's become this heated of an issue, and that confuses me a bit," he said.
Kim Hyatt • 612-673-4751
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