Kimball City Attorney and Marion County Attorney Billy GougerJASPER, Tenn. — When Marion County began the transition into a new region of state library administration, officials discovered they weren’t in compliance with the laws regarding appointments to the library board.
Ralph Chapin, chairman of the Marion County Library Board, said the move into the Stone’s River library administration region will be final on July 1.
“In the process of this move, we have learned that each mayor of a municipality that has a library within its boundaries can appoint one member to the library board,” he said.
County Attorney Billy Gouger said he and County Mayor John Graham started looking into the matter a couple of months ago and discovered the county was not following state law.
“We’ve never complied with that law,” he said. “It’s nothing that the library board has done. It’s just that for years, our process for appointing board members and replacement board members appears to not have followed the law.”