Board of Trustees Special Meeting Minutes: Tuesday, October 29, 2013

 

ROCKINGHAM FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY BOARD OF TRUSTEES
SPECIAL MEETING MINUTES
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2013 at 2:00 PM
LOCATION: Town Hall, 3rd floor meeting room, Bellows Falls, VT

Board Members in Attendance: Jan Mitchell-Love, Hope Brissette, Ray Massucco, Elayne Clift, Deborah Wright, Paige Pietrzak, Pat Fowler, Carolyn Frisa, and Laura Senes.
Staff in Attendance: Sam Maskell and Emily Zervas.
Public in attendance: Arnold Clift, David Gould, and Barbara Stickney,
Press in attendance: Susan Smallheer (Rutland Herald), Chris Garofolo (Eagle Times) and Allison Teague (The Commons).

1. Call to order to order at 2:09 pm by Chairwoman Jan Mitchell-Love.

2. Task Personnel Committee to begin Director search process—Jan Mitchell-Love requests the board task the Personnel Committee with developing a job description to use to recruit a new director, using past job descriptions, descriptions from other libraries and input from Sam Maskell and Emily Zervas. The Personnel Committee will bring recommendations to the November 12 board meeting. The board agrees with this plan.

3. Library move-in update — Sam Maskell and Emily Zervas report a successful move. The staff has been working hard and there have been a lot of volunteers from the community. The board thanks the staff and community for all their hard work. The board also thanks Pat and Alan Fowler and the Friends of the Library for donating chairs for the upstairs meeting room. The library opened Friday, November 1, 2013.

4. Housekeeping Details—public record requests, open Treasurer position, and scheduling committee meetings—Deb Wright made a motion that Pat Fowler fill the open Treasurer position and sit on the Finance Committee. Pat Fowler accepted. This motion, seconded by Hope Brissette, passed with 7 in favor and 1 abstention. Pat is making arrangements with People’s Bank to have a budgeting workshop for all Trustees to attend.

Two newspapers have requested emails from all trustees. Elayne Clift presented documents about public records law and requests they be included with the minutes. Carolyn Frisa reports having consulted her own attorney, who advised her to consult the board’s attorney. Ray Massucco presented bills for consultation by Jan Mitchell-Love to Mr. Ankuda concerning previous requests for public records. Elayne Clift made a motion to invite Mr. Ankuda to attend a board meeting to educate the board on public records requests for 1/2 hour time limit. This motion passed with 7 in favor, 1opposed. Jan Mitchell-Love will see if Mr. Ankuda can give us something in writing earlier for us to discuss at the November 12 meeting.

The next by-laws meeting will be scheduled at the November 12 meeting.

5. Other Business

5 a. The interim co-directors, Emily Zervas and Samantha Maskell, were asked and agreed to print out the following for monthly trustees’ meetings: a list of every warrant and the monthly payroll list.

5 b. Deb Wright passed out copies of the legal penalty for not filling public record requests by their due date.

5 c. Deb Wright reported that the Town responded to the Vermont Department of Labor about the former director’s termination – rather than her employers, the Trustees — because the library does not have an EIN number and, instead, uses the Town’s. Chip Stearns stated he has no copy of the paperwork. Jan Mitchell-Love was tasked with asking Chip for copies of the paperwork for the Trustees.

6. Executive Session – if necessary: there was no executive session.

7. Public Comment –

7 a. Comments were made urging public comment be scheduled at the beginning rather than the end of meetings. Jan Mitchell-Love agreed to do this for the next regular trustees meeting on November 12th.

7 b. Carolyn Frisa requested a public records request in her name from the newspapers. Chris Garafalo did this orally to Elayne, Carolyn, and Rayfor the Eagle Times and the Rutland Herald. Carolyn said she would comply.

8. Adjourn – the meeting was adjourned at 3:40 p.m.

Minutes respectfully submitted by Laura Senes, Secretary.
November 5, 2013