For the City of St. Helens, this year may be considered "The year of the suit."  Another former employee is getting ready to "Drop a bomb" on the City.  The "Bomb" will not come in the shape of a material object, but will probably manifest itself in the form of subpoenas served to a non-feeling City Council.

Karen Macfarlane worked as our city Librarian for well over 10 years.  She took a cold, small-understaffed library and helped shape it into a warm people friendly institution.  She energized the public into supporting the library and helped move it from the old DMV building to the grand new Columbia Center.  She created a beautiful children's book section.  She worked closely with the community and was able to bring in numerous donations both of money, books and loads of volunteer labor.  She accomplished this with the help of a small but talented staff of people, and at minimal cost to the general public.

Computers were purchased for the library, Internet was added, and she took and completed an ambitious automation project. 

She was popular; the employees worked well together, the public was happy, but sadly, not everyone liked Karen.

Karen had a budget, and as part of her job, spent time reviewing it, and making sure that the items on it went for the library not for other organizations. 

The Columbia Foundation was formed as the result of a generous donation from Diane Kem.  Diane donated something in the neighborhood of a million dollars to form this foundation. The City also provided a match for the Kem funds, and gave them land in McCormick Park to construct a Center.  The foundation purpose was to operate the Columbia Technology Center and two meeting rooms.  The Center sells Internet services, rents out meeting space, and puts on classes for the public.  All of this is done for a reasonable fee.  They (The Foundation) lease their portion of the building from the City for a nominal fee (I was told $1 a year).  The City Library also shares this building with them.  The City has the responsibility to maintain the building.  The City oversees janitorial help, pays for all utility costs, and does structural repairs as needed.   

Karen first got into trouble when she bumped heads with the director of the Columbia Foundation.   She insisted that since she was running a publicly owned library that the public, not a private foundation, should own the books and other materials that the library used.  Her stand did not sit well with some people, and these people had power. 

The Columbia Foundation Board is made up of seven people.   Two of the seven people had very close ties to the City.  These two people were the Mayor, Don Kallberg; and Councilman Jim Huff.  Two more people also had very close ties to the Mayor;  those being: The Mayor's lady companion, Leila Otto; and Diane Dillard (The Mayor was executor of her husbands estate).  The final three board members were: Marion Christensen (the daughter of Diane), former Legislator Jim Christ, and former PGE Vice President Don Kielblock. 

In the latter part of 2002, the City took Action against Karen.  Although nothing was broken, our Mayor and City Council decided to fix things.  They changed Karen's position description, and hired another person to take over her old job as Librarian.   

Although Karen was no longer in charge, it was alleged that her presence was an embarrassment.  The word was out that the City had to get rid of her, and get rid of her they did.

She was charged with "Theft" and put on administrative leave

What did she steal?  She was accused of stealing services.  A nominal fee was changed to the public for using printers that were attached to the library computers.  People paid by the page.  Karen, instead of turning this money back to the City General Fund, used the money to buy supplies for the Library.   

When she was called on the carpet for this heinous act, she pointed at that she had been doing this all at City Council Direction. 

A card fee is charged to people that live outside of the city limits.  Karen was then accused of not paying for her Library card.  Not only did she not pay for her card, but she also was accused of allowing other Library employees to have cards without paying for them.   Karen, and some of her staff members lived outside of the City limits.
In answer to this dire charge of misconduct, Karen pointed out to the city Council that she was doing this because THEY had directed her to do it.   For years it was thought to be a good idea for librarians to be familiar with the books in their libraries. It was also thought to be a good idea to encourage them to have cards so that they could check these books out. 

She was forced to hire a lawyer, and forced to pay well over $8000 in legal fees.
She was threatened, with jail, she was harassed both on the job and at home.