Special Meeting of Board of Trustees
Rockingham Free Public Library
Tuesday, February 18th, 2014
Time and Place: 4:00 p.m. at RFPL Meeting Room
Trustees in attendance: Hope Brissette, Pat Fowler, Jan Mitchell-Love, Paige Pietrzak, and Deb Wright.
Trustees not in attendance: Elayne Clift, Ray Massucco, Carolyn Frisa and Laura Senes
Staff in attendance: Emily Zervas, librarian
Public Attendees: Arnold Clift, David Gould, and Constance Pell
Press in attendance: Chris Garafolo of the Eagle Times
1. Call to Order: the meeting was called to order by Jan Mitchell-Love at 4:11 p.m.
2. Public comment: 2 minutes per person; 15 minute time period for all public comments: David Gould asked if the public, particularly the Search Committee, was going to be briefed on the litigation timeline. Ms. Pell told him “no.” Arnold Clift read a statement urging the Board of Trustees to wait until an injunction, filed by the terminated library director, is ruled on before hiring a new library director. Mr. Clift read this same statement to the Community Search Committee on Tuesday morning. (This statement is attached.)
3. Finance Committee: update on investment of annuity – Pat Fowler: Pat explained that the annuity is now in a money market account earning 1.9% interest as Security Benefits, where we were going to take out an annuity for 2.1% interest, is under investigation. Linda Walker of People’s Bank is hopeful she can soon identify an appropriate place to invest the monies.
–Pat also told the board there had been an issue with a discrepancy with federal i.d. number originally assigned to the $182,000 that needs to be resolved at some point in the near future. Pat suggests that we have a binder for the future of the library’s investments, locked away, where all the financial papers are so that future boards will have these documents readily available.
— There was a conversation about what to do with the $57,000 currently at TD Bank. Deb Wright made the motion and Hope Brissette seconded that the treasurer investigate the money market funds available for investing the remaining $57,000 and report back to the board. The vote was five for the motion, zero against, and zero abstentions, motion passed.
4. Executive session (pending litigation): Deb Wright moved that we enter executive session to discuss pending litigation and invite attorney, Constance Pell, to enter as well. Hope Brissette seconded. The vote was five for the motion, zero against, and zero abstentions. The Board of Trustees entered executive session at 4:23 p.m.
At 5:18 p.m. the Board of Trustees came out of executive session. No action was taken.
5. Work session by trustees on trustees’ bylaws: work through Committee B’s recommendations: it was decided that there was not time to accomplish anything meaningful as the Board of Trustees were due to attend a 6:00 p.m. Selectboard Meeting, so no bylaws revision work was done and the bylaws work will be rescheduled.
6. Schedule next work session: the board identified 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday, February 25th as the next meeting date. It was mentioned that this meeting also might have other items on the agenda than just bylaws revision.
7. Adjourn: Paige Pietrzak made the motion to adjourn, seconded by Deb Wright. The vote to adjourn was unanimous. The meeting was adjourned at 5:23 p.m.
Minutes respectfully submitted by Jan Mitchell-Love, Board Chair
Proposed Statement to the RFPL Search Committee on Tuesday February 18, 2014.
I understand from official sources that the Town of Rockingham has been served Notice of a Motion for Preliminary Injunction by Celine Houlne, former RFPL Library Director, to enjoin the Library Trustees from hiring a Library Director pending the outcome of her earlier Complaint to the Court for wrongful dismissal. I assume that this Notice has already also been served on the Board of Trustee or will be very soon.
In the interests of full transparency and proper integrity on the part of a public agency of government, I assume that this Search Committee will inform each candidate it interviews for the Library Director position, that this Motion to the Court for Preliminary Injunction has been filed and served on the Town.
I would appreciate hearing your intentions with regard to the matter I have just raised.
As there is no audiotape of this meeting, I request that the minutes of this meeting record as closely as possible to verbatim any further discussion of this matter in the Search Committee.
I request that this statement be entered into the record of this meeting.
Arnold J. Clift