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FVRL board selects new director

Contract with Amelia Shelley to be finalized Sept. 9

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Amelia Shelley

The executive director of the Garfield County Public Library District in Colorado is the preferred choice to serve in the same capacity for the Fort Vancouver Regional Library District.

The FVRL board of trustees has selected Amelia Shelley to succeed Nancy Tessman. The board’s recent unanimous vote authorized Chairwoman Jane Higgins to negotiate the salary, benefits and other elements of a hiring agreement with Shelley.

The board will meet to finalize her contract and start date Wednesday, Sept. 9, at 2 p.m., at the district headquarters, 1007 E Mill Plain Blvd., Vancouver. The meeting will be open to the public.

The other two finalists were Peter Bromberg, associate director for public services at Salt Lake County Library Services in Utah, and Jon Worona, division manager at the San Jose Public Library in California. Meet and greet opportunities with all three finalists were held in August, in Stevenson and Vancouver.

Higgins said Shelley’s skills and experience best qualified her for the position.

“We especially valued Amelia’s success in a geographically spread-out district like FVRL, her experience in negotiating with several communities for the simultaneous completion of six new libraries on time and under budget, and her fiscal skill at adapting to an unexpected and severe budget cut without reducing library hours or staff,” Higgins said in a press release.

Shelley began working for the Garfield District, in Rifle, Colorado, in 2007. Before that, she was the manager of youth and outreach services for the Laramie County Library System in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

There is $750,000 in a FVRL cash reserve fund to go toward a larger library in Washougal. There are also supporters seeking larger libraries in Woodland and Ridgefield.

Tessman announced in March that she would retire this summer. She has served as the FVRL executive director since July 2012.