Fort Vancouver Regional Library got an A+ in all categories of Operation at the February 17, 2026 board meeting at the Cascade Library in Vancouver, Washington State

 

Fort Vancouver Regional Library got an A+ in all categories of Operation at the February 17, 2026 board meeting. During the budget report details, the AFSCME (sitting behind) and WPEA union Reps had long unhappy faces as did their members told to come, to hold signs saying, “Build a Better Board”. In all systems, per W. Edwards Deming, quality starts at the top. At the top in this A+ system is the board and are the board members sitting on that board, who then hired well, the current director of that library system, Jennifer Giltrop, (on the left), who then hired well, the current budget administrator on the right as well as all other excellent managers in each of the fifteen libraries in this system. Something to celebrate.  

However, unions, particularly, “public” unions are not focused on the public, not interested if a tax receiving public institution has an excellent report card of A+ in all areas of operation, balanced budget (actually coming in under budget), increased number of library cards, increased use of the library by all demographic populations, well run programs in all fifteen libraries in three counties, the public quite happy with their libraries. But not the unions.

The AFSCME representative sitting behind all the up-lifting reports looked unhappy. She had already done her public comment letting the board know how unhappy she was with the board. The WPEA was similarly unhappy. Why? Due to one word. The library system with their A+ Report Card on February 17^th 2026, reporting on happy patrons using the library, the unions had come to try to take down the sitting board members because of one word. These union representatives are not experts in the operation of the fifteen libraries within this system. They just had a few library workers come with pitchforks and torches (figuratively speaking) over one word in the library’s mission statement. They lined them up in the back of the meeting room and put on long faces during the up-lifting operation report from the director of the library system and budget administrator. Interested not, in good news. They put out the word on social media to come out and “fight”. Unions can’t hope to get new members and their members’ money through being happy about an operation that is ran well, thus they put out a let’s “FIGHT” poster, come and harass the sitting board members, be rude, sarcastic and ugly during the public comment period.  For what? One word. One word that is not in a mission statement document.

No union representative and no member of the unions making public comment for months identified what would happen to the fifteen libraries with that one word gone. The only explicit example, one commenter made was fear she wouldn’t get any large print books. She will get her large print books.

Now going into seven years is the desire by a minority of patrons and union members to bring back ugly men dressed up, made-up, heavy garish make-up, as sexualized clown women who want an audience of pre-school children. This reporter as well attended many of these board meetings witnessing this unrelenting push by a minority to have access to pre-school children. This group never comes to make public comments about protecting children from being groomed, groped, molested and/or raped. This group never complains there are books targeted to young children that show blow jobs being given.

The word “equity” appears to be a euphemism for the word “sex” related to this long on-going situation with the library. As long time commenter, Quill, expressed at this board meeting via the phone, he will be back (now for seven years) to get those kind of men back in the library to have access to pre-school children.

There was a board meeting in December 2023 where young people courageously spoke up about their trauma from having been sexually violated in their young lives, and they were accurate about the Catholic Church, the Boy Scouts, etc. This reporter, in taking her grandsons to the Gresham Library in Oregon had to always have eyes on them as a man had come into that library and exposed himself to children at that library.

 Instead of asking for programs and books supportive of healing from that kind of trauma, it’s been mostly one long seven year haul of trying to get those ugly men back into the library to have access to pre-school children.

NAMBLA’s (North American Man-Boy Love Association) slogan is “Sex before eight or it’s too late”.

“NAMBLA stands for the North American Man/Boy Love Association. It is a U.S.-based organization founded in 1978 that advocates for what it describes as consensual sexual and romantic relationships between adult men and underage boys (often referred to by the group as "man/boy love"). The group campaigns to abolish age-of-consent laws and seeks the release of individuals imprisoned for such relationships, framing these as issues of civil rights, anti-ageism, and opposition to what they call "anti-sexualism."

Now these union representatives are on the march to go “fight” at the Clark County Council meeting on February 18^th to demand that the council get rid of the board members they do not like.

The Ft. Vancouver Regional Libraries board of directors is a W. Edwards Deming board who hired well in hiring the director, Jennifer Giltrop, who then hired well managers at the fifteen library locations. W. Edwards Deming was the American who revitalized Japan after WW II with his system that “quality always starts at the top”, it cannot be delegated downward. Governor Gary Locke, in 1997, tried, was well-meaning, trying to bring that Deming quality to DSHS in state government, however, those top managers were having none of that Deming training, none of that in operating how DSHS would be run.

“William Edwards Deming (October 14, 1900 – December 20, 1993) was an American business theorist, composer, economist, industrial engineer, management consultant, statistician, and writer. Educated initially as an electrical engineer and later specializing in mathematical physics, he helped develop the sampling techniques still used by the United States Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. He is also known as the father of the quality movement, known as "Lean manufacturing" today, and was hugely influential in post-WWII Japan, credited with revolutionizing Japan's industry and making it one of the most dominant economies in the world.^[1][2] He is best known for his theories of management.^[3] “  (Wiki)

The Fort Vancouver Library system now is a high quality W. Edwards Deming system. Other systems might learn from the current board members of that system.

February 18, 2026