Editor's Note: See the correction noted at the end of this story.
Even as the parties wait for Senior Judge Donald L. Barnes to rule in the Moniteau County Library lawsuit, one side wants Barnes also to find library board members in contempt.
The five-page motion, filed by Jefferson City lawyer Judith Anne Willis on behalf of the city of Tipton and three western Moniteau County residents, reminds Barnes that he ordered the Moniteau County Library District officials not to spend any funds received from the payment of library taxes applicable to the district's Western Subdistrict.
However, Willis told Barnes, it appears the library board has spent at least $6,370, in direct violation of the court's Oct. 28 order.
In last week's motion, Willis said the plaintiffs have been assured the funds were not being spent, but library district records show otherwise.
"Defendants have consistently been contemptuous of statutes and of the Western Subdistrict taxpayers and are now being contemptuous of this Court and the judicial process in general," Willis argued.
James Stephen Grantham, lawyer for the county board, has not filed a response with the court and did not respond to a request for a comment for this story.
Willis asked Barnes to hold a hearing at the court's convenience about the contempt request.
The legal battle has been in court since October 2015, when Tipton and the three county residents sued, arguing there's no legal basis for a countywide library district because voters in the Eastern Subdistrict never approved a property tax.
For years, Moniteau County residents could use one of two private libraries - the Tipton-based Price James Memorial Library and the California-based Wood Place Library.
In 1996, the county commissioners created a public library district, establishing the Eastern and Western subdistricts.
The new library district then contracted with the two libraries to provide free public library services in each respective subdistrict and continued to do so through June 2015.
The county commission also set a property tax rate which residents of the two subdistricts had to approve. The Western Subdistrict (Tipton area) voters approved the tax in 1997, but the original lawsuit argued the Eastern Subdistrict voters never approved the library property tax.
The October 2015 lawsuit pointed to a state law that voters must endorse a property tax rate within five years of the library district's establishment or the district would be dissolved. "The Western Subdistrict of the Moniteau County Library District is a valid library subdistrict (while) the Eastern Subdistrict is not a valid subdistrict (and) must be dissolved" the suit argued.
The lawsuit also said a 2004 vote inside California's city limits approving a library tax wasn't valid because it was too late and it wasn't a vote of the entire Eastern Subdistrict.
The lawsuit said the library board's 2013 decision to accept a donation of California's Wood Place Library - then rename it as the Moniteau County Library at Wood Place and operate it as the county's public library was wrong - since the only "legal" library district in the county is based in Tipton.
Instead, the lawsuit contends, the board has spent money illegally on the California property and hasn't provided money for the Price James facility in Tipton.
After some legal maneuvering in early 2016 - including re-filing the case through the attorney general's office - the case was assigned to Barnes, a retired judge from Boonville, who held a hearing on the issues Dec. 12.
He continued the no-spending order through Thursday.
Correction, posted 1 p.m.: The motion seeking a contempt finding against the Moniteau County Library District, filed in the circuit court last Friday, argued the California-based library board has spent at least $6,370 in violation of Judge Donald Barnes' order against spending tax money raised in the western library subdistrict. The number was reported incorrectly in the original version of this story which has since been corrected.