Cottage Grove library will expand hours, but the city still faces budget shortfalls

After nearly 10 months of operating with no weekend hours, the Cottage Grove library will open on Saturdays starting in September.

Head Librarian Natasha Chitow said the city had enacted a hiring freeze to help balance the budget. The library couldn’t fill an open position and had to make do with four staff members, two of whom are part-time. Saturday hours were cut because it was the day with the lowest traffic.

“It’s really, really difficult to stretch that many service hours, because we need a minimum of two people to be able to run the library at any given time,” Chitow told KLCC. “So we are just returning back to the service level that we had before.”…

Story continues

TRENDING NOW

LATEST LOCAL NEWS