Ketchikan's library could lose 40% of its budget — and who picks the books is part of the fight

Ketchikan's public library could lose nearly half its money at the end of the year — and underneath the budget fight is a quieter one about who gets to decide what's on the shelves.

The borough pays roughly 40% of the library's budget, but its assembly voted to end that agreement, citing rising costs, and negotiations to replace it have gone sour. If nothing's worked out by December 31, that money vanishes. Assembly member Kathy Bolling says the borough came to the table offering only a modest inflation bump the city rejected.

Some on the borough side, she says, want control over what the library buys for its collection, which she called "offensively absurd." Her blunter warning: whoever ends up running the library, a borough assembly reluctant to fund it means "it's going to be a battle no matter what."

Residents aren't waiting to find out. A citizens' petition drive is trying to put the library's future to a public vote, gathering 289 signatures so far toward a goal of about 400, with a July 20 deadline — the same day the assembly holds a public hearing on the library. Even signatures that don't get certified in time, organizers say, send the assembly a message.