In 2018, county residents approved a library levy to help fund capital projects. CHPL then embarked on an extensive community engagement effort to help develop a Facility Master Plan. Before 2019, CHPL hadn’t engaged the community in years. In fact, in 2017, an idea to explore the possibility of selling one of CHPL’s downtown buildings to fund capital improvements without taxpayer funds wasn't communicated effectively, leading to community protests and potentially damaging CHPL’s trust with the community.

CHPL worked with consultants (e.g., Group 4, Design Impact) to engage our community around the FMP via:

• Listening sessions & dot surveys at 41 locations.
• Focus groups for underrepresented groups, e.g., low-income residents, people experiencing homelessness, refugees, African-American residents, Latinx communities, people with disabilities, parents and tweens.
• Four three-hour workshops with 40 community advisory council members.
• Vision workshop with local leaders (e.g., government, business, education, arts).
• Online survey: 1,300 community members.

Community engagement was essential to creating our FMP. By engaging the community in 2019, we rebuilt their trust and got support for our 10-year plan and vision. Our County Planning Commission’s Board of Directors endorsed the plan at a February 2020 meeting and FMP media coverage was overwhelmingly positive. Community groups invited CHPL’s director to speak about the FMP. The Community Advisory Council members asked that the Council continue due to its success. Reaching over 3,000 community members was a significant achievement.