photo by: Bremen Keasey

The entrance to the Perry-Lecompton Community Library, at 203 W. Bridge St. in Perry. Leaders with the library — which is only open a few days a week — are circulating a petition to attempt to get a referendum on the ballot that would make it a district library and join the Northeast Kansas Library Association (NEKLS) to access more funding and resources.

Organizers working to create a library district for the Perry-Lecompton Community Library are now one step closer to their goal, as they recently met the requirements to get a referendum on the November ballot.

The volunteers in Perry and Lecompton who help run the community library had been circulating a petition to put the question on the ballot. As the Journal-World reported, they want voters to approve the formation of a library district, which would help make the library eligible for grants from the regional Northeast Kansas Library System that Perry and Lecompton residents already pay taxes to.

Looking further down the road, a library district could eventually allow Perry and Lecompton to more directly rely on tax money, like the Lawrence Public Library does.

Because the two communities are in two separate counties, the petition needed to earn a certain number of signatures from voters in specific parts of each county. At least 37 people who live in the Lecompton city limits and 138 from the unincorporated parts of Douglas County within the district needed to sign it, as well as 203 people from the rural, unincorporated parts of Jefferson County and around 50 to 60 people from Perry.

Douglas County Clerk Jamie Shew said the petition earned more than enough signatures for it to appear on the ballot in both counties. Specifically, it will appear on the ballots of most voters in the Perry-Lecompton school district.

Its language will read as follows:

“Shall the following be adopted? The formation of a Perry-Lecompton Library district with boundaries of the proposed library district being the same as the boundaries of the Unified School District #343 and less and except that part of the boundary of Unified School District #343 that lies within the city limits of the City of Lawrence, Kansas.”

If voters approve the referendum, Mike McDonald, the executive director of the Northeast Kansas Library System, previously estimated that the Perry-Lecompton library could receive around $10,000 in funds through the regional system in its first year.

Residents have until Oct. 14 to register to vote in the November election. Advance voting begins Oct. 15, and election day is Nov. 4.