Since about 2014, the Deschutes Public Library has investigated how it could improve services, after more than two decades with the Downtown Bend Library as its largest facility. Almost three times as many people live in Bend as there were when the downtown library was built in 1998, and Bend's growth isn't stopping. DPL's plans for its new Stevens Ranch Library lie on a plot of land on the east side of Bend, part of a 375-acre planned community. The 100,000 square-foot facility is expected to break ground in January, despite a contentious drawn-out battle between factions on the library's board of directors.
May election results maintain the status quo of the Deschutes Public Library board: All three incumbents, Cynthia Claridge, Ray Miao and Anne Malkin — kept their seats. The status quo, however, is contentious, and has been since voters approved a bond that promised to create a central library and improve branch library facilities.
The bond authorized the library to issue nearly $200 million in general obligation bonds to build a new central library, build a significantly larger Redmond library and "repair, modernize and upgrade Sisters, Sunriver, La Pine, Downtown Bend and East Bend libraries." The result would be more community space, a children's area and more programming, with a tax rate of 34 cents per $1,000 of assessed property, the November 2020 voter pamphlet stated.
Dissent on the board
Miao said he objects to the size and location of a large central library that, at 100,000 square feet, is two and a half times as big as the Downtown Bend Library. He also takes issue with the design of the library and says the purpose of libraries has changed now that catalogues are digitized and people can reserve books online or access them digitally through e-books and audiobooks. Miao wants more support for the area's branch libraries and believes a scaled-back central library could open up funding opportunities for another small branch.
"We don't need a warehouse full of books to accommodate what's coming in the future. This library, it has to meet the needs not only of today, but years from now," Miao told the Source Weekly.
The library board majority agrees that the nature of libraries has changed, but not in the same way. Library Board President Anne Malkin said when the board reached out to the community to gauge interest in a new library facility, the public wanted a large children's space, more community gathering spaces and more programming. But Miao contends the information-gathering was flawed, and too reliant on pitches by consultants.
Logistically, the library system says it needs space to store books. DPL has about one book per Deschutes County resident, which is about half what DPL says an ideal library system has. When meeting with consultants, Malkin said enhanced community libraries were considered but scrapped due to costs.
"It was six years of work, comments from 6,000 people, and we were working with nationally recognized library facilities planning consultants. We didn't just make an assumption of this as what we need," said Malkin. "The consultant basically said, 'Whatever you do, don't build a bunch of small buildings, because it really limits the services that you can provide. It's expensive to build. And it's astronomical to maintain and staff over the course of time."
Board positions
In the two elections since the bond, candidates have been sorted into pro and anti-central library positions. In May 2021 Anne Ness unseated then-incumbent DPL Board President Martha Lawler, advocating in support of budget cutbacks at the central library, delaying bond sales and investing more in smaller branch libraries. Last week, voters re-elected Miao, who maintained his positions about the central library, and Cynthia Claridge, who ran on a platform of moving forward with the bond projects. Malkin ran unopposed.
Lou Capozzi, a retired public relations executive and one of the investors in EO Media's 2019 purchase of The Bulletin, aided in the campaigns of Ness, Miao and Tony Oliver, Claridge's opponent. Capozzi also financially contributed a little under half of Ness' campaign money with a $1,000 donation. From 2016 to the present, Capozzi also contributed campaign funds to a handful of former and sitting Bend city councilors, including former Mayor Sally Russell, current Mayor Melanie Kebler, and councilors Anthony Broadman, Ariel Mendez and Mike Riley. Capozzi said he helped Miao, Ness and Oliver with message development, fundraising, campaign advice and helped prep them for debates and interviews. Library Board member Bunny Thompson said Capozzi called her in the runup to her 2021 election, telling her to drop out — something Capozzi denies.
Capozzi advocated against the library's plans to build a Robal Road location at the Bend Planning Commission meeting in February 2022. After the BPC recommended that the City Council make the code changes necessary to allow the library to move forward, Capozzi corresponded with Bend city councilors. The City Council then signaled they'd reject the proposal to alter the Bend Development Code to allow libraries to build outside city limits without conducting a master plan, and the library withdrew its request. The Bend City Council didn't outright reject any other planning commission recommendation in all of 2022, but it does frequently tweak them.
"I'm very cautious about one-off exceptions for schools, the city itself and any development. The code is in place to ensure that we have complete communities for working families to live in," Bend City Councilor Anthony Broadman said. "I think you have a council, that we take land use decisions really seriously."
Emails from Capozzi to City Councilor Barb Campbell, obtained through a public records request, suggest Campbell was initially supportive of the Robal location, but changed her mind by the time the City Council deliberated on the matter at its March 16, 2022 meeting. Capozzi corresponded with other city councilors, but no others indicated support for the project in emails obtained by the Source.
At that March 2022, council meeting, Campbell, who didn't respond to an interview request from the Source, criticized the library for the size of the central library, its hastiness in cashing in on its bonds and for not including information on the size and location of the central library. Library staff said specifics weren't included because it would kill the project if hurdles to location arose, but that it was advertised in the media and is included in the arguments in favor section. A Source Weekly article from 2018 noted that a central library would be at least 95,000 square feet and was estimated to cost between $75-$90 million, though the library was on a tighter budget and hadn't drafted the $195 million bond. Current projected costs are closer to $120 million to build and furnish the Stevens Road Library.
A move to Stevens Ranch, and ethics complaints
After the Robal Road location failed, DPL found an alternate location in the Stevens Ranch area, a 375-acre master planned community. DPL purchased the property in October 2022 with Miao opposed and Ness abstaining. During the past several meetings, the DPL board has voted more uniformly on the Stevens Road Library, with Miao voting as the lone dissent on the project that's expected to break ground in January. Capozzi has continued advocating against the project at the new location.
"'I'm not supportive of the plan. And I've been doing everything that I can to see if we could find a way to have the plan be more consistent with the long-term interests of our community, and that's my right as a citizen," Capozzi told the Source Weekly.
On April 30 Capozzi emailed DPL Executive Director Todd Dunkelberg, saying he'd filed an ethics complaint with the Oregon Secretary of State. He alleges DPL interfered in elections by placing an ad in The Bulletin about the new Redmond Library and the Stevens Road Library, and for advertising new library locations on a billboard. The complaint also alleged that during a KPOV interview with Dunkelberg, the interviewer said Miao opposed the central library against the will of the voters. Two days later Capozzi filed a second complaint and suggested if the board turned, he'd advocate for firing members of the staff.
"You are using taxpayer money to influence an election. Even if your lawyer advises that it's legal, it is certainly unethical. IMHO [in my honest opinion], if you lose these two seats you should start looking for a job," Capozzi wrote to Dunkelberg and board members.
Library staff weighed in on the ongoing division during its May 10 board meeting. Over 50 employees signed onto a letter accusing Miao of putting up roadblocks for the bond project.
The Stevens Ranch project is expected to continue at this point, albeit without unanimous support. Board members Thompson and Claridge said they expect the Stevens Road Library to proceed. Miao said he'll continue to push for compromise, and Anne Ness was unavailable for comment by press time. Board President Anne Malkin was less resolute, saying that after the past two years she can't be sure about the future of the project.
"I don't know what the future will hold," Malkin said. "Because if you had asked me two and a half years ago, when we passed the bond, whether we would be in this situation two and a half years later, I would have never predicted this."
