Updated: May 2, 2026 & May 10, 2026
By Brian Massie, A Watchman on the Wall
Let’s “pull back the curtain” on Morley Library.
It appears that transparency is not a strong suit of Ms. Martinez, or the Directors of Morley Library.
Here is the Lake County Auditor’s Schedule A showing the one property tax levy for the Lake County Library District, a.k.a. Morley Library.
Here are the taxing districts paying for library:
Director Martinez earns $113,630 per year, and Ms. Norman receives $72,723 per year.
Here is a write-up from their audit report that provides some details of employee benefits. It is strange that the Director said that they do not have a list of employee benefits, but their audit report had this detail.
Here is the big finale – their financial statement for the year ended December 31, 2025 showing receipts and disbursements.
Please note that they received $1,126,687 from the property taxes.
They earned $626,443 on their cash investments.
Their cash balance as of December 31, 2025 was $14,181,280!!!!!
Shame on the Board of Director’s for not even considering the plight of Lake County taxpayers being priced out of their homes because of the ever-increasing property taxes.
This shall not stand.
We are calling on the Lake County Budget Commission to do their job and provide the checks and balances, recently afforded to them by the State Legislators, needed to protect the interests of Lake County taxpayers. Lake County taxing authorities are outgrowing the private sector’s ability to pay for services.
Update:
We were notified by a Lake County citizen about the books that Morley Library was discarding while they went through their $1.7 million building renovation project.
https://www.morleylibrary.org/content/interior-renovation-project
Upcoming improvements to the library include:
- Conversion of two underused spaces into flexible programming and meeting spaces;
- Installation of an integrated AV system with livestreaming capacity in the lower-level meeting rooms;
- New flooring and paint on all levels of the building;
- New furniture in all public and staff areas, with the exception of the Genealogy/Local History Room;
- Installation of water bottle refilling stations to replace the drinking fountains.
Unfortunately, the library had to get rid of those space consuming items – the formerly needed books. When I asked why the books where not given away to the community, I was told that they would have to refer me to their director Aurora Martinez. To date, we have received no communication from the director. This is a very bad look for the library that receives property tax revenue from a population no longer using the library.
Here is Ms. Aurora Martinez’ response to my email asking why the books were not donated to the citizens of Lake County.
Mr. Massie,
I was told that you wanted to know why the library placed discarded books in the dumpster currently being used during our renovation.
Library staff adhere to a regular ongoing routine of reviewing and updating all of our collections. Per our policy, materials that are outdated, damaged, or have little to no circulation are removed and either given to our Friends of the Library for their book sales and Little Free Libraries, or discarded. The items that were placed in the dumpster were outdated reference books that were not suitable for donation to the Friends.
Categories: Community Activism, Lake, Lake County - General, Lake County Politics, Ohio Counties, Uncategorized