The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

DAYTON — Neighbors United for Progress (NUP), a nonpartisan political action committee in Dayton, has been awarded the Candace Morgan Intellectual Freedom Award 2024 by the Washington Library Association. NUP president Elise Severe accepted the award at the WLA Annual Conference on March 2 at the Spokane Convention Center.

The award is presented annually to “an individual or group for their efforts to defend, champion, support, or educate others about Intellectual Freedom in Washington State.” The award recognized NUP’s successful effort last year to stop a ballot measure that could have resulted in the closure of the Dayton Memorial Library.

In August 2023, a petition to place a measure on the November ballot to dissolve the Columbia County Rural Library District was submitted to the Columbia County Auditor. NUP filed a lawsuit in Columbia County Superior Court to block the measure. Among other issues, the suit argued that the law allowing the ballot measure was state and federally unconstitutional because it excluded taxpayers within the city limits from voting. The court agreed and nullified the petition.

If the measure had appeared on the ballot, Dayton’s public library could have been the first in the nation to be closed by voters.