Last month, like a tennis match, the Wallace Township Library Board served a service proposal back to the Reddick Public Library Board for Reddick trustees to allow Wallace residents membership to the Ottawa reading center and its programs.

At Monday's night monthly meeting, Reddick board trustees decided to think it over before returning the serve.

The current Wallace offer is for any family that would requested a Reddick Library card, the township would calculate the amount that family's fair property value would have generated with a 22-cent rate payable to the district.

The 22-cent levy is nearly exactly what is charged to Reddick property owners, including all special levies.

Wallace trustee Karen Karoghlanian told the Reddick board during Monday's meeting "after living in four states, this is the first place where my family does not have access to borrowing books from a public library."

Living in Wallace Township since 2008, Karoghlanian appealed to the Reddick trustees to accept the proposal.

Reddick trustees voted to defer action on the issue for further review by the board's legal counsel.

Wallace, a "paper" library district with no physical facilities, recently was rebuffed by the Reddick board to contract individual family memberships for annual fees of $100 each with a $1,000 minimum payment.

Asked after the vote how much adding Wallace families would increase the operational costs of Reddick's costs, both Library Director Kathy Clair and Board President Neil Reinhardt agreed the dollar number would be "negligible."

Reinhardt added his board has an obligation to the the taxpayers who "support the library at this time."

Inequity in taxation was the prime concern that led Wallace Township voters to set up their own library board rather than join the Reddick district before it was created years ago.

Following an executive session, the board voted to retain Clair as Library Director for her second year at a salary of $57,000.

In other action, the board:

• Retained IIP Insurance Agency as its commercial and workers' compensation insurance carrier following a review of several higher bids.
• Passed an amended version of the district's employee handbook following a discussion of language changes, holiday vacation dates and possible discipline matters.
• Agreed to a request by Clair to seek bids for resurfacing the library's parking lot as she said, "it seems to be settling near a manhole and creating a problem." She also requested the board considered adding an additional handicapped parking space in the near future.
• Deferred to the finance committee a review of the city of Marseilles' plans to annex 20 parcels of land for possible legal recourse to prevent the district from losing future potential tax revenue.