By Anne Gibson
Board members, Friend’s members, and guests gathered at the Esmond Station K-8 school, a Vail School District School, on Saturday, January 8th to celebrate the Friends of the Esmond Station Library’s Third Annual Meeting. Its corporate papers mandate the requirement to conduct an annual meeting.
With the opening of the meeting it was explained that there was a sense of disappointment in that the meeting was not being held at the public library located on Mary Ann Cleveland Way. Addressing the disappointment it was noted that the library was scheduled to open on Saturdays on November 1, 2021 and again on January 1, 2022 only to postpone again due to Covid19 and its variant.

Disappointment didn’t last long after the announcement that on November 17, Michelle Simon, Deputy Director of Support Services for Pima County Libraries, sent the Friend’s President a contract signed by Amber D. Mathewson, Pima County Library Director – Administration, to begin the finally procedure in the approval process between the Pima County Public Library and Friends of the Esmond Station Library.
The seven-month negotiation of the eleven-page contract set the working rules to establish a beneficial relationship for both parties. With both signatures the contract was sent to the Pima County Procurement Department for execution.
There is some humor in this lengthily processes. Page 10 states that the Friends may not boycott Israel. The reading rapidly escalated the conversation to why we as Friends would ever need to boycott Israel. As it turned out all county contracts contain this wording because it is in the Arizona Revised Statutes for the State of Arizona. It also helps to explain why the contract is eleven pages in length.
“It’s such a pleasure and honor to work with the Friends of the W Anne Gibson-Esmond Station Library. Supporting the great Vail community is the library’s goal and it’s wonderful to have such a supportive group helping to achieve the same goal,” said Pima County Library Executive Director Amber Mathewson.
“Friends of the Esmond Station Library are very excited to be the seventh Friends group with the Pima County system of 27 libraries. We are very pleased that a contract recently signed by Friends and Pima County will allow us to work very closely with our regional library to provide additional programs and financial support,” said Esmond Station Friend’s Treasurer Pamela Kelty.
Guest Speakers at the annual meeting included Executive Director Tom Cashman from the Pima Library Foundation. The Pima Library Foundation is a non-profit organization formed in 1999 to ensure the continuing vitality and excellence of our library system by developing and sustaining a permanent fund for the long-term benefit of the Pima County Public system. Cashman assumed the position of executive director to the Foundation in June of 2021. He was educated at the College of Wooster, in Ohio, and at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.
The second guest speaker was John Halliday, chair of the Pima County Library Advisory Commission. He shared in the budget for 2022 is the enlarging of the parking area by 30 spaces, or double its original size, at the Esmond Station Library. He has held the position of Chief Administrative Officer for three libraries; one in for Yavapai County, Prescott, AZ, one in Bellingham, Washington, and finally a regional library is Charlottesville, Virginia. The Library Advisory Commission consists of ten members appointed by the Pima County Board of Supervisors. The board advises the Library Director in making decision on policies and procedures that directly affect library users.
Whittley “Anne” Gibson is a third generation Tucsonan and alumni of the University of Arizona. She has been an active community member in the greater Vail area since the late 1970s.