Board of Library Trustees - Grafton Public Library - Regular Meeting

call this meeting to order at 7:05. Um, so welcome everybody. Let's do a quick call to order since we're on Zoom today. Um, we'll start with you Prau. Hi. Rachel here. Doug here. Carrie here. Aaron here. And then we have two guests.

Do I I guess we have Evan Bazard and William Blake from the town administrator's office. So, thank you for joining us. I think um we're going to since we have the town administrator's office on the line, I think we're going to jump in the agenda um to what was it? 10D. Um, and so during our I I'll just do a quick intro, Evan. Um, but during our um Rachel and I met with uh William and Evan last month, the intent, we mentioned this last month meeting, but the intent is that the um trustees and town administrators would meet hopefully once a once a month. Um and during our meeting last week, one of the items we talked about was some of the challenges we've had with managing some of the infrastructure or building pieces. Um like primarily around the HVAC earlier in the year there was the you know obviously the re uh the remediation of the flooding and right we've always relied the trustees have always relied on a lot of great support from the town administrator's office. Um, and we thought it would be good to maybe maybe formalize that a little bit more. Um, so the town administrator's office drafted a memorandum of agreement and so maybe I'll just hand that off to you Evan and if you want to just kind of go through your thoughts that was included in your meeting packet. Um, so hopefully everyone got a chance to read that.

Yep.

Um, yeah, I can do it from a high level and then Will, if you've got anything to add, please jump in. I mean the intent of the document is just to kind of create a delineation of what uh the expectations would be from the trustees and likewise from the town. um just to try to lay out um kind of that framework so that we don't find ourselves wondering who's responsible for what or um you know find ourselves in a situation where um you know we could run into some some just just to protect the relationship, right? And we we wanted to just really clearly lay that out. So um that's what we attempted to do. This is obviously our first draft of it. Um it essentially makes it so that the town is um responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of the building, any projects um related to that. Um and then just outlines that we would have um financial control over the line items that would be necessary for us to be able to do that work. um you know, trying to avoid the having to go back to the the trustees every time we we want to make a a repair. Um since we're, you know, in charge of of that side of the house. Um so I think that's the quick and dirty of it. Will, did I miss anything?

I don't believe so. Okay. So that's that's really the intent there. whether or not um you know you agree with the the language or whatever that's obviously up for discussion but that I think that's what we were trying to capture after meeting with Doug and Rachel and I think Evan what I really like about this approach is it gives us a year for trying it for like solidifying roles and responsibility and if we need to change the language even throughout the year as we learn more I think it's just an open discussion and we can put another MOA together right it so I think this this will help us move us forward and give everyone a little more ability to move faster on some of our facility items.

And I I would add that related to funding, and correct me if I'm reading it differently, Evan, but if it's a line item in the current budget that Katrina manages from the library, then the trustees of course would not need to be involved. And that's what Evan is referring to. if it was kind of out of out of scope of the current budget or maybe the funds were higher than the current budget and it would require maybe let's say state aid then that would still come back to the trustees. Correct. Yeah. Correct. Yeah.

Yeah. We're not looking to overstep into that realm at all. Um and just to be clear and I don't know if this needs to be codified. I don't think it does because this is the hierarchy that we have but like none of this is happening without Katrina. uh you know it's not we're not just doing random work at the library, right? So this all stems from from the Yeah. Right. from the director kind of initiating some of these uh these issues or bringing them forward. So just like we do with every other municipal building, right? Whoever's responsible for it initiates that that kind of approach. So I have a few um questions. So

we'll go around Erin. Yeah. Thank you. Um, so just kind of trying to understand um I guess I don't see see the difference, but I I think what the goal of this document is is really just to um formalize what we are already know or already doing, right? The library the the trustees are the custodians, right? And the stewards of of the of the the building and the grounds. Um, and I think since we uh help develop that budget, we are I guess in a sense making sure that our library is cared for to make sure that it's within the budget, you know, in order to to do regular maintenance and in support of the library. So I guess I so a I don't really see kind of um um what's changed and and secondly um I I I'd like to know if this is coming from um kind of what what the town had um been doing a few months ago or weeks ago where they were visiting all the um municipal properties. So I think at one point um I think maybe we were in between directors and one of the um librarians had mentioned that uh the town had kind of come unannounced and they didn't really know why they were there but I think they said it was part of just um you know looking at all the town assets um and the library is one of the town assets. So is that kind of how this this came about? Um I guess it's a question for Evan. Uh so I mean the short of that is no.

None of that um really applies. So um per the the charter and you know Mass General law, you are the the stewards, you're responsible for the care and custody of the property, right?

Um and so there's always that consistent rub. And if you read, you know, any of the the kind of exit interview documents or, you know, complaints of prior staff, it's that the trustees are slow to act on maintenance and they they felt like they needed, um, more support. And so ahead of Katrina coming on board um our conversation and please feel free to jump in Doug or or Rachel if I'm mischaracterizing this um but it was to kind of codify that the the trustees would like the town to take the lead on all of those building related items um and and not um you know be involved in the day-to-day Um,

yeah, as far as the building facility and grounds goes,

I think that's a great recap, Evan. And what I would say is we kind of went in with the question like how can we best help support Katrina as she comes in with all all the facility pieces and things that are going on and as they explained a little bit how they support the rest of the town and even with some of our conversations with Gan and how she would operate with their local like town to help with some of the facility stuff. it kind of highlighted this gap and a lot of the stuff that that we need at the library the town's already doing and at a really great deal, right? So, it it it also financially makes sense and it's for that smaller maintenance stuff. It's not so much the should we should we update something or change it, right? All that will still come back here, but if if there's an issue or something breaks, right, Katrina can use them as a resource to start first. I think from a lot of our conversations that I've heard since I've been on the board, that was kind of our expectation of what was happening. I think the library directors had been leaning on the town, but they felt like their hands were a little more tied because this part hasn't been solidified. Um the the the review of the building, I think it's just something the town does periodically and truly was unrelated

to any of this. probably a communication gap on the library side because we didn't have a a like like there was some leadership like changeover and stuff. So I

that's where I would land on it. and the that the building assessment that's a that's a volunteer committee that's putting together an asset inventory for all the buildings in the municipality as well as any deficiencies or upcoming um you know concerns that they may find. Um so we weren't involved in the scheduling of that and I would assume uh that no one in the library was aware that that was going to take place. Um, we also didn't know that was going to take place. So, that's just a kind of an outlier, I think. Perfect. I mean, I would thank you. No problem. And I would give two examples, right? We we mentioned Hback. To me, that's

even with the previous director, right? He had challenges keeping up with all the issues and he doesn't know who the best um, you know, service person is. And so, he's always, you know, the director is always relying on the town to figure out who should come and check it out. And then of course once there's some kind of um uh funding required then he has to figure out is this going to come out of his own budget or something like that. I feel like this just allows the town administrator to I guess formalize that to be much more involved without having to deal with us. This is a great idea and uh I think we should have um addressed it sooner and I'm glad we're finally making some progress here. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. And then Carrie.

So um I just want to say thank you for putting this together and thank you Rachel and Doug for meeting with Evan and William. really appreciate it. And um I guess just to the point of the HVAC, um I think that's the perfect example of something that is going to require ongoing maintenance and it's not an area that the board is necessarily has the, you know, the um the relevant experience, but the town does that um can really provide value and you and do a good job helping to support it. And then of course, if there's something that's major that needs to be replaced and it's not within the existing budget, then yes, absolutely. you know, comes to the board to approve funding for that. But, um, but I think working together, it'll, you know, will provide a better solution for the for the library. So, thank you.

Um, I think one concern that, um, someone had indicated to me, Evan, was around cases where, let's say, the director disagrees with your assessment. Mhm. Like how would we how would we negotiate or figure that out or or maybe she's on vacation for the week or or something?

Yeah. [clears throat] I mean my my thought process um kind of immediately is that you know we were going to approach you know everything at the library pretty much in the same fashion we do that at every other municipal building which is you know the director in charge of the facility is really in charge of the facility and needs to be on board but if you know Rachel's on vacation and uh we blow a compressor in the HVAC system we're going to replace the compressor and and move on. There's not a lot of nuance to these type of things, right? We're not talking about uh painting a wall color or uh you know, it's it's going to be whatever. We we broke a paint of glass on the front of the building. Well, we're going to replace the glass. You know, it's not that type of nuance. Um I think that still all has to come back to to you folks or or you know, whatever authority you delegate delegate to the director. So, I I don't particularly feel like there's a rub there. Um, if you uh or anyone on the board thinks that there is, we can certainly try to craft another bullet point in there to mitigate that concern. Um,

I mean, personally, I'm not concerned because, you know, like it's written, it's the health, safety, and structure of the building. And right, those things, you know, we're going to want to fix regardless of who's who's, you know, if someone's not there.

Okay. And and and lastly, I I can tell you, you know, we we do work with like say the historic society or any of those groups and and what we what we've generally done if we have something that is, you know, a a safety issue, but we also recognize, you know, there's a design element or a historical whatever um uh concern or or any of that stuff. is we we do the immediate stop gap to fix the safety issue and then we can go back and address, you know, uh it has to be historic wavy glass or um you know that that wall has to be this color to match the other wall or whatever it is. So, um I I I think we're okay with with how it's written, but Yep.

Yeah. Anybody else any other trustees have questions or comments? anything specific on the language or the writing of the memorandum? Any other questions for us, Evan or William? I I don't have any. I'm I'm uh you know, grateful to all of you for taking the time to work with us on this and codify it. I think that's going to help ensure that we don't have any friction points and um you know really just looking forward to working with Katrina and uh you know expediting things where we can. So great. Thank you. Well that I guess I'll make a motion to accept the MOA.

Sure. I'll second. Motion made and seconded. Um any discussion further discussion? Prau, I know um [snorts] if you have any questions, speak up. Yeah, I have no questions. Great. All right. So, hearing none. Um all those in favor by roll call I. Rachel I. Doug I. Carrie I. Aaron I. I declare the motion carried. Um thank you again William and Evan for putting it together and um looking forward to our next monthly meeting and continued support um by the by your office. All right. Thank you. Happy to help you. Thank you. Thank you. I don't know if you can see us, but [laughter] take care. Thanks.

All right. So, then we will jump back into the agenda. Oh, I should have done this first actually is welcoming our new director. [applause and cheering] Happy to be here. That's okay. Yeah. So, [laughter] and do you always say your full hyphenated name? Uh, I mean, no. [laughter] Okay. They actually put it as villido, but usually I go by Katrina Ireland, but Okay. Well, however you want to call. [laughter] Yeah, we're all certainly um trustees and I'm sure the staff are quite excited. You don't have to call me Mr. Vanstein. [laughter] It's a mouthful. Yes, I agree. Yes. Yeah, those long names, man, they're killer. We're all excited to have you on board. I'm very excited to be

and I hope you I know you've met some of us. Hopefully over the next couple weeks, you'll end up meeting all of us. Um, we're trying to get the trustees to, you know, obviously regularly visit. Many of us regularly visit visit anyways, but just to get everybody in there. Welcome, Christina. I'm sorry. Welcome aboard. Thank you. I have a travel job, so I most often than not I'm traveling. So, I'm trying to figure out a schedule that eventually I can lay my feet down on ground. I will be there sometime. So, yeah, it it can be difficult when you're busy like that. Yeah. and and Prau has um agreed to join us on the policy subcommittee. So the next time we meet hopefully we'll all be in person. Yeah, that's great. Great.

All right. Thank you. All right. Um so then moving along, um sometimes these meetings go quite long, so we try to do our best to keep moving along. Um may I ask a quick question about the town administrator's office? Um you said looking forward to seeing you at our next meeting. You mean every meeting or is that So no, I meant I meant our And so we know we're meeting with them quarterly too, not not monthly. Yeah. So we met with them in October. Yeah, cuz we're November. So October. So we'll meet again in January with them. Um it just seemed like the right cadence. Monthly was probably a little a little too much. But if stuff comes up, we'll do an ad hoc meeting if anything does. Um, but that was

and originally we were thinking the two of us as chair and vice chair, but we certainly can switch around if someone else wants to get involved one quarter. I think probably start it makes sense for you you you but then if you need somebody like if you can't make it or you know we can always fill in but um but I think it's great that you're building the relationship. So we're lucky to have them to help support us. Yeah. No, I think it's good.

Okay, so next on the agenda is minutes. So, this was kind of a blast from the past. Um, there were six different, actually, I think there was a seventh. Um, well, okay. So, anyway, we have a lot of meeting minutes that need to get approved, so they get posted to the the town website. And, um, there are some cases where we're quite behind. Um, I think a lot of these were, um, either during COVID or when we were absent uh, admin. Um, so I have gone through I think I submitted like I don't know 15 minutes to the clerk. Um, but there's still a lot remaining. And so we have these six that are on the agenda. Um, and you'll notice the first one is the um, library director search committee and this was essentially our last meeting. Um, which of course we can't approve our minutes to the last meeting. So those are coming here. Um the next three are actually from last year's uh director search. Um so they're from February of 2024. Um we have two 2022 meetings of of board of library trustee meetings to approve. So I don't I don't know if anyone had any questions, but

I'll make a motion to approve the minutes as listed here as A through F. Second. Uh motion made and seconded. Uh any discussion, questions? I realize many of us or many of you were not here during some of those times. Um this is the 2022 especially the 2022. Right. Right. Um I'm just one question. Yeah. Sorry. Do I do we have uh do we need to have quorum for approval of the minutes or can I can I vote present and I'm sensing who all were not here in 2022.

Well, I' I've been instructed by the clerk's office that even if you did not attend the meeting, um you can still approve the minutes. Okay. Unless someone else knows otherwise, but I'm pretty sure they said that's exactly it. Yeah. Right. I mean, I wasn't here for the 2022 meetings either. It was before Yeah. And honestly, I um I read Rachel wasn't Yeah. So, no, but I think at at this point, right, meeting minutes were taken, someone this is their best recollection and that that's what we have and some comfortable moving forward with. But I Yeah, I trust that no one took the minutes in bad faith. So, and no one's asked questions about them in a couple years, so I doubt there was anything that

that critical that would be in it, too. Okay. Um hearing none. Um vote by roll call who I Rachel I Doug I Carrie I

Aaron I I declare the motion carried. Thank you. So we do have some others that I meant to get on the October minutes from last month on but I didn't make it on the agenda. So we'll vote for that next week. And then we had a fair number from the policy committee that we're still trying to figure out um where those ended up. Um but I think we have them all. It's just a matter of if Katrina can help us dig through the archives. And then I think they were um that was um Debbie at the time, right? Um so we we might have to wait for Debbie to see if she has them on her system somewhere.

Um Katrina and I were discussing um there's a lot of paper when we used to be uh paper board. Um we had packets. Yeah. Packets and paper. And I think didn't we just were we talking about policies or were we talking about minutes that may be in those folders? Do you recall? I think I I was hopeful that there were minutes in there. There's certainly policy. Yeah. Um I did not find any minutes while I was digging through what's in my office. Okay. So there's still I think in the historical section there might be some places for me to look, but I haven't had any. And have you figured out access to all the like the network share? Yes. Okay.

Yes. And I did a search on that and didn't come up with anything. Okay. So, okay. So, yeah. Well, we're hopeful that um maybe hopefully that Debbie has them. I mean, I have I have a lot of the the draft uh minutes um but none of them I guess after the fact, right? Right. Because they So, um we'll do our best. Yep.

Okay. Um, moving on to approving the bills. We have four warrants, 18, 19, and 20, 21. Um, just Katrina, for your purpose or your benefit, we typically will we want the trustees to be aware of the warrant. So, we bring those to this meeting for approval. Um, there's really two steps. There's the signature of them which allows you know Eileen to submit for payment and then there's the kind of the signing off on here. Okay. Um so for now let's just work through 18 through 21. Make a motion to approve warrants listed 18 through 21.

Can you list the dollar amounts? I can. Sure. Warrant number 18 for $5,9622. Warrant number 19 for $4,9772. Warrant number 20 for $3,439.91. And warrant number 21 for $5,19943. I just have a question. Um, so usually when we do the warrants, we first say like we want to do it as a consent agreement and then like we kind of have two votes. Is it like it seems to me like doing it the way that you did it seems okay. Can we just

I've never had to vote for a consent agenda for anything with Robert's rules of order before this board. So I don't know if we really need to, but I also not like in detail on that either. That's my understanding as well. Yeah. Okay. Second. Motion made and seconded. Uh any questions? These are all included in the packet. Um, so there lots of pages of of the actual in individual invoices. Um, as you know, typically they're all book orders and stuff like that. Um, occasionally there's a big ticket item if there's HVAC maintenance that's repairs and stuff like that. So, you know, it is important for the board to glance through those and obviously know where the money is being spent. So, Erin, did you have

Yeah. So, better to get the motion on the table before we before we discuss it. But, um I I think you're absolutely right. So, you can make a motion to absolutely, you know, ex accept anything on on the agenda. You could mash bills and and other approvals together if you wanted to, right? I think that's kind of what we're talking about. So there's no reason to say or, you know, we're gonna vote to vote these all in as a group, right? So I think the way you did it is fine because you did basically say that in your motion, right? Okay. Yeah, it sounds like otherwise it seems quite redundant. Yeah. Okay. Okay. That's all.

Any other Yeah. So um do we have the bills for this week ready to sign? Because I came in last Okay. So all right. I have them for you. Okay. [laughter] Because we have it. Yeah. Okay. Terrific. Mhm. Give it five minutes and maybe you can sign. Okay. [laughter] Yeah, that's right. That's right. Um, any other questions on 18 through 21? I'm hearing none. Vote by roll call. Proble I. Rachel I. Doug I. Carrie I. Aaron I.

I declare the motion carried. Thank you. Um, next. Um, now that we have Katrina here, we would like to um vote to allow Katrina to sign the bills on behalf of the trustees. uh they would still be coming to this meeting as warrants to sign, you know, to approve, but the actual signatures would be the responsibility of the director, Katrina. Um I make uh a motion to uh allow Katrina to sign um the weekly bills. Seconded. Great. Motion made and seconded. Any other discussion on that? Feel like we should ask Katrina, you get to sign the bills. I'm so excited. Okay. [laughter]

Eileen is so excited. Yes. Eileen is very excited. Yeah. So, I think really the point is just so that none of the payments get delayed. Yeah. Yeah. And of course, if we need to come in, if you're out for any reason, of course, you know, like we can we can you serve that role. But that's great. Yeah. And ultimately, it is your budget as well. So, you need to know where the money is being spent. Yes. Yep. And then we'll see it after the fact. If we do have any questions, you know, we can we can ask. All right. Great. Great. Um, any other questions? So, who seconded that one? That was Rachel. Okay. All right. So, hearing none, vote by roll call. Real eye. Rachel I. Doug. I.

Carrie. I. Aaron. I. I declare the motion carried. Thank you. All right. And actually, if there's any questions, I can pop, you know, I have everything on my laptop. I can pop it up on the screens. Um, all right. Next is ongoing business friends update by Carrie.

So, um, we were, so the friends were, uh, thrilled to have Katrina attend the last board, uh, friends board meeting that was held via Zoom. So, thank you so much. They were, everybody was, you know, very pleased to to meet you. Um, so for the friends, the next big upcoming event is Craft and Celebrates the Holidays, which the friends participate with along with our library staff. Um, so the friends like once again will be selling uh their book bundles. Um, they'll also have other items for sale. Um, and I believe it'll be in back in um the friends um the friends corner. Um so um so that's wonderful. So that's going to be Sunday, December 7th. So again, um it's it's a great event. Um the library will be having activities as well. Um so um it just it just really works very nicely, you know, kind of supportive. Um I did notice um and I um I apologize. I didn't see this until um to now. Um for the next meeting, it it indicated on the agenda that it was the next one was on Wednesday, December 3rd. Um it's actually um usually the friends board meetings are on the second Tuesday of the month. Um it was there was an exception last month. So I think that's maybe why it carried forward. But um next month um it will be back to the regular cadence which will be Tuesday, December 7th at 7:30 via Zoom. And um again, I will um plan to participate, but if there's any other board members who'd like to join in, um certainly you more than welcome to do that. We just have to be cognizant of the fact that we can't um exceed, you know, can't have a quorum of of trustees.

What was the date again, Carrie? It's Tuesday, December 9th. It's via Zoom. And um if Rachel, if you'd like to attend that one, um I can send you the Zoom link. Um it's the same link um every every time. And uh yeah, it's a you know it's a Sorry, did you say December 7th or December 9th? Nth. 9th is the friends board meeting. The 7th is Grafton celebrates Grafton celebrates the holiday which of course you know the library will be um open from 10 to I don't know is it till 4? Not sure from on I actually don't know. Yeah.

Yeah. I'd like to I know it's not a separate agenda item, but we need to talk about staff working on that that Yeah, that'll be in the director. There we go.

Okay. Um terrific. Okay. So, um so then the friends I did also talk about having um a another used book sale and I believe they're talking about doing it in February. Um but um I need to check back on the date on that. Um and as as soon as um as soon as we confirm it, I'll you know share it with everybody. But it's you know obviously a great memory. So okay. So thank you. Oh and the friends again um um and so this kind of carries over to the capital campaign a little bit but um but the table that the capital campaign funded was assembled.

Beautiful. [laughter] We're very excited and they're using it to display, you know, um books as well. So, yeah. So, you very uh very appreciative for that. Looks great. Great. Any other questions for Carrie on the Friends? All right, I'm moving along then. Um policy committee update. Aaron.

Um, we did not meet uh this past month, but um Katrina and I um spent time last Tuesday. Is this your second week? This job third. Third third week on the job. So your first week um just to kind of talk about how the policy committee operates and the roles and responsibilities um you know of the director who's primarily um the one you know writing the policies and we are just kind of making sure as advocates of the um the town and and the uh the patrons that it it you know meets their needs as well. Right. So we have all the right people um you know uh writing policy. That said, um you know, we talked about that there's a lot of policies and we'd like to um you know, at least from from Katrina's experience to um really determine what's needed, what's not needed. Maybe things are redundant and really streamline our policy to make sure that um it's manageable because it's very hard to manage um as a subcommittee um that meets, you know, via Zoom for one hour, you know, a month. Um um and you know to be able to get policies updated in front of the board in a timely manner too because we haven't been really great at at doing that in the past. Um more just because a lot of um flux with um you know having a director right is really the the driver of um you know that policy process. um and also talking about getting them over to legal and review and and all the different um steps that need to go including the union as well.

Um so it's it's a difficult process even just to do one policy and I'd like to you know streamline that process a little bit more. Um but do you have anything to to add based on that discussion or uh just that it was a positive discussion and I look forward to looking at all the policies with the committee and seeing what we can do to make it make sense. Yeah. And really um anything that was written uh by previous directors, you know, it doesn't mean that we have to um just continually use those policies, right? If we feel something um doesn't really meet the the current state of the library or your your style, right? Certainly, we want to hear that as well.

Um because some stuff was written by three or four directors ago and we've just been kind of continuing it, modifying it and stamping it. So, okay. Can you remind me if the after hours meeting room policy was under review or is that still um I don't think that ever um made it to policy committee. Okay. Because I I honestly can't tell you who wrote it. Yeah. Okay. Um I think what you had put a procedure together. Correct. Correct. But I'm referring to the actual policy. Yeah, we had a policy, right? But I think um yeah, I'd have to see if it was one that we had posted.

The one we reviewed last meeting touched on on it a little bit with the rental space. Is that where that's what I'm referring to? I remember [clears throat] our last meeting, we we talked about it with one of those policies. So, there's a piece of it in there. I think that one went back to committee if I'm remembering. Right. It might have come down off the website because we couldn't put it into um Yeah. uh because we didn't really have a way to allow people to use it after hours. Okay. Yeah, it is off the website. Um

yeah, I mean I would love for us to um review that policy, but as importantly put together the procedure on like how that would actually work and how the person would come in and out of the building and set the alarm and who that person would be. Yes. So I can meet with you about that later. Yeah. Do you want to come to a policy committee meeting? Sure. Okay. Okay. It would also be interesting to hear like what the challenges are and like your short-term workound versus what we would need to invest in to make it more scalable, right? Because I think there's a difference between being able to make it work here and there with a little more more risk, right? Versus something that we might need to think about longer term to really

bring a higher level of comfort to that as well. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. There's really been, I think, two scenarios. One is if if one of the staff wants an after hours event, you know, whether it's a uh making this up, but you know, birthday party or something, um that's that historically has been a little bit or or even the friends when they have their their Sunday things. Those have been usually a little easier because some staff is already involved and they can go in and out of the building or the director has been involved in that. It's more if a business wants to have an after hours event who it wouldn't be staff because it's not anybody's staff responsibility but who would be then responsible for the building at that point.

Yeah. I wanted to mention um Dean had put in her last interim director report that there was a security badge for me which I didn't really ask for [laughter] when it's particularly so um I didn't pick it up or anything. I don't know like I I certainly think we should discuss you know whether or not we need to have that. I think it had come out of it's a badge that they can turn on just for those couple like hours or day, but I think we want to tie it to similar like to have you trained and things so you can get in and out is where that came from. So yeah, I I see that as a great feature because now we can have something that's just active for, you know, a short period of time. Okay, great. So I will follow up with Katrina on that procedure and then um think about it for the next policy meeting.

Okay.

All right. Any other um comments for Aaron or questions on the policy committee? Okay. Hearing none, we'll move on to the director's report. And so that was included in the packet and Katrina, even though it's been two weeks, did a nice job putting together the report. I had also included the final report from the interim director, too, which was a um had a lot of useful information in it as well. Yeah. So, um, first of all, thank you. Thank you for the warm welcome that I've received. Um, it's really been wonderful to get to know everybody, to get to meet with the staff and kind of figure out what we're dealing with here. Um, thank you for my my lovely little gift. I've already used at least five pages of the to-do notebook. [laughter] So,

yeah. Um, all right. So, um, I know these meetings go long, so I'll just dive right in. Uh, I've already had a chance to meet with all of the staff individually and have held a couple of department head meetings um to try to move forward on items that are important to staff and try to get a handle on uh what the staff sees um in terms of day-to-day and and what can be improved upon. Um so we've had some really positive conversations around there. Um the an update on the administrative assistant position. So uh William Blake just returned from his three-week uh Australian honeymoon.

Yeah, we forgot to

on Monday. Yeah, exactly. Um so unfortunately he did not have an opportunity to post that before he left. He said that it is on his to-do list and he hopes to have that posted by the end of the week. So um we're we're in a holding pattern for now until that's done. Um, so I had read Jean's um previous uh director's report and I guess that this was on her um on her report. So I don't know if you had already discussed the non-precedented set setting request to close on um Saturday, November 29th and where that landed.

It's a good question. So that's this year. That is this year. and it would be so it's the Saturday Thanksgiving. Yep. Um my understanding is that this has happened in the past. I believe we voted on it last meeting. I'm just We did something last meeting around Thanksgiving. [laughter] Um because I think it also has to do with their shampooing the carpets and like that. Yeah. Um, sorry. There's just so many meeting notes here. There it is. I must have missed the the result of that.

Well, let's um let's just move past that now. And I'm going to read the minute meeting minutes from last month real quick, but I don't want to hold you up. Do you want the answer? If you know it. Yeah. Jean didn't feel comfortable um proposing that because she wasn't going to be there. She thought it was more appropriate for the new director to propose that if if she wanted to in this case. Okay. Thank you. That's helpful. So that was what we just talked about last month.

In October she proposed it and you postponed. you know, in September she proposed it and it got postponed to October and October when she found out she was [snorts] not having the job, she didn't bring it forward because she didn't think it was appropriate. Okay. Thank you. Yep. Because I don't see it in in the meeting minutes from last month. So, um I don't Does any of the trustees remember President for being closed on Saturday because it's a you know certainly a big holiday weekend. Well, I guess Katrina, are you interested in bringing it forward? Is this more just trying to confirm where we left?

Uh, yeah, I am interested in bringing it forward, especially as we um are doing the carpet cleaning in the children's room. I know that it does take some time for that to dry. So, I think it would be helpful. And I also know in my personal experience, nobody comes to the library that Saturday. So, [laughter] yeah, I remember we chose the doing the carpet thinking that it was going to be closed a couple days. They had suggested, I think, at least two days for that to dry. Any other comments?

No. But um if someone's prepared to make a motion to have it here, I'll make a motion to approve the closure of the Grafton Public Library on the Saturday. Is it November 28th? 29th. Saturday, Octo, sorry, November 29th. Um um over the the um extended um Thanksgiving holiday week. Second. Okay. Motion made and seconded. Uh any discussion? I think we just want to make sure we highlight it's a nonprecence setting decision with the Should I amend my motion? I'd like to amend my motion to say that this is a nonprecedented setting setting motion

for the purpose of carpet for the for the purpose of um allowing for the um maintenance related to the carpet. Excellent. Any discussion? Okay. Hearing none. Vote by roll call. Prau. Prau. I. Rachel. I. Um. Doug. I. Carrie. I. Darren I. I declare the motion carried. Thank you.

Thank you. Um related. So, some of the conversations that I've been having with um staff have indicated that um they would like to return to having regular all staff meetings, which I also think are um valuable and important. We are using our professional development day tomorrow to hold an all staff meeting. So, I'm very excited about that opportunity. Um, in the past it was a little easier to schedule these things because the hours of the library allowed it. So staff were scheduled to come in at nine o'clock, but the building didn't open until 10:00. So that was sort of a natural way for us to have an hour before the building opens to have a meeting. But obviously since the building hours have changed um and shifted to open at nine o'clock, we don't have that um sort of natural hour before while everybody's in the building. So we're this is just um a potential solution where we're talking about multiple solutions or maybe having you know one month we have an 8 a.m. So, obviously using the professional development days, those four months to hold staff meetings, but then maybe one month we meet at 8 a.m. and one month we meet in the evening and one month we potentially close between 9 and 10 so that it um allows different staff members to be able to attend because we know that with 22 people, we're not going to be able to get everybody all the time. So, I was curious to hear your thoughts about that. Well, I'm appreciative that you're pulling the staff and asking for their input. I think that's really helpful to, you know, kind of find different options and I think being flexible and having um, you know, offering, you know, having at different times, you know, does accommodate, you know, everybody

hopefully at some point. So, so thank you for doing that. Yeah, I do. I agree. It's important to um if everyone's not going to be coming, you know, on on a weekday because they don't work that day, then be being able to mix up the things, mixing up the uh the dates. Um my biggest worry about closing library for the hour is just the communication to the community if it's like a random date, if it's, you know, because there everyone's used to the the current library hours. Yeah. Um, do if you look at the and maybe you don't know the answer to this, but if you look at the the staff, like if you picked one weekday morning and then one weekend, like the Saturday morning, would that cover most?

That's a great question. And then they'd have to come in at 8. Because what time do they open on Saturdays? 9. It's 9:00. So, they'd have to come in at 8 on a Saturday. So, it'd still be 8 o'clock in the morning, which I know some people have longer drives, but Yes. Then at least you wouldn't have to close the library if that would still cover all the staff. Yeah. Um, I'm not sure. I'd have to go through the schedule. I know the the Saturday, um, there's like a team A and a team B. So, whatever Saturday we chose, it would be difficult because half of the staff wouldn't normally be scheduled that day. Saturday might not be the the best solution, but um, and that's why we were talking about ADM possibilities as well because

I don't know. It's one of those things. It's difficult to get 22 people together in a room when everybody's got a different schedule. So, yeah. And it might have um you know, we didn't really hear much about it before, but it might have been a problem even you know, three or four years ago when you know they were regular. Certainly. How does the communication and like feedback loop work? So, obviously if everyone can't be there, like would you hold like an 8 and a 9 a.m.? Like do you do like do you just have the same meeting twice with half the people and then like recap any unique questions or anything?

Probably not. Um I I can't imagine having two backtoback meetings and having different staff being able to be there. Um my so for instance my intention is to make sure that we have really good meeting notes and pass those on to everybody who's not able to attend. Um, so there would be follow-up communication so that everybody is remaining in the loop. Could another option be like a hybrid meeting? So like try to intend for most people to be there in person if they can, but if they're not scheduled for that day, um, I mean, yeah, I know a lot of, you know, the meetings that like I do at my job, like most of them are via Zoom anyways.

Yeah, that's a great idea. We could certainly do that because we we have the owl in the library building. So, we're excited to hear what you guys come back with officially. Yeah, I think Yeah, that's what I would suggest is let's just spend another month figuring out different options and seeing what works best and come back next month. Okay, sounds good. Although, we don't I think as a board we don't have to approve if you're not going to if you're going to close the library, we'd have to approve that. But, okay, sounds good. All right, so I'll explore that more. Thank you. Um, we I had a request from Indivisible Grafton. very familiar with the group.

So, I don't know too much about them um other than they are a local um group that um champions DEI practices in the town of Grafton. So, that's made up of Grafton residents. And uh the leader of the group, I think her name her name is Jennifer. Um I don't have my notes with her last name. She um called me and asked if we would be willing to have a community pantry in the foyer of the library where the free books are. It would be uh maintained by Indivisible Grafton and it would be there for people to take um food items, food pantry items as they need.

So you're talking about like the entrance way. There's the two little benches and then there's a very small little shelf there. Yep. So, in that initial foyer area, it's not very big. You mean between the two doors, like the the outside door and like the weather door? Yeah. There's not a I mean, there's those two benches. Yeah. There's not a lot of room in there. There isn't. So we we have um so so you know the I think you know supporting you know supporting the organization is is great but we do have in grafton like there's the community harvest project as well like there are

other other food pantry options. I don't know. Yeah, I guess I'd like to see what the formal request is and if they've considered, you know, um other opportunities as well, right? As well as the Grafton Public Library because if this is the only place they're considering, then sure, we we need to know that. But I think you brought up a great point. you know, um the food pantry is also another place, but I think I think the goal is right, they want kind of easy grab-and-go access at a institution where sees a lot of public traffic, right? Right.

I would also say, yes, I think that's great. Um, so I think having that detail makes a lot of sense, but I would also think this might be something would make sense to talk to the town administrator's office as well to see like, you know, is there like another food pantry? Because I I know for sure community harvest like that's actually a farm like they you they provide food to the community, but um but I'm not sure if there's you know other Well, there's the Grafton food pantry. There's the graft and that's open twice a a month for like and that's at the municipal center. Yeah. Cuz because I think sometimes when we come in there upstairs, right? They they do it.

And I was just searching the group a little bit. I think my other question their proposals like really who's accountable for upkeeping and maintaining the website didn't have a lot of information. I don't think they're like at least at least it didn't look like they're like an official organization that like we'd be able to sign an agreement with or anyone. And so I think like if there is like upkeep and things like that just how does the work that work? I don't know if the town would have any other thoughts and how what we would need in place for that.

Sure. And I think also too we have to be cognizant of um like egress um because like I know that we have that little um we do have a few books there that are free um but it is a very small little shelf but we have to make sure that there's clearance um like like when um we have the um the friends book sales um when we use like conference room A and B like sometimes things kind of get too close to the door so we have to make sure that they're moved far enough away in case of an emergency as well. So again like that space is very small. So I'd be a little my worry too is that space is pretty small as it is and it's also visible, right? I mean that's where people coming in and out. They might be sitting waiting for their parents or you know to pick up. Yeah. Or Yeah.

Yeah. We want the benches to be accessible too. Like sometimes people need to rest there as as well like if they're waiting. Yeah. So I would you maybe just take an opportunity to get a little bit more information and that the board can look at it on their own. Mhm. and we can consider it. Sounds good. Love the idea of feeding the community. Yeah, it's a great I mean great idea. I feel like we just threw a lot of red blocks up. No, that's that's good. It's good. It's good to have these things hashed out. So, potentially just ask her to come up with a formal proposal including who would be responsible for maintaining it and then talk to the how much stuff they expect to have, like how much room they need.

And I I definitely think it would have to be a different location. And I don't think that that entrance way like I don't think that that for any kind of significant amount of I I don't think that that would is a big enough space. Yeah. All right. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Um All right. The big one, building and grounds. Um, so, uh, I took a look at the building inspection, um, to-do list kind of that Tracy Shy had sent me and we had been working through some of that stuff. Um, we failed, I don't know how much of this you want to know, but we failed the fire inspection, so we've got to get the fire in or the East Coast fire and ventilation out. Um I think this is a relatively old problem, but the door weight is too heavy. Which door? From the the main door.

Yeah, I um so I I was copied on the original email. Okay. And I had some questions like I I So those front doors there there's a certain amount of time like a minimum time it and maximum time it takes to open and close. And if it's not weighted and right, it's wrong. I actually videotaped it and it seemed to be within the um the requirements but I know that she had found she had marked the the report had found that it wasn't. Yeah. Yeah. So I think somebody had at some point reached out to the door vendors and the door vendor also came to the same conclusion but um Tracy is fairly adamant that

it's too heavy. So can you remind me does Tracy work for the town? She's a town. Okay. Yes, she's the building inspector, I believe. Gotcha. Is this something that since we just voted in the MOA with the with the town administrator, maybe you can take that back [laughter] and then come back and let [snorts] us know if And so I guess I guess this is my question like, do you want me to just relay this information? Definitely relay it. Yeah, we want to know what's going on. Definitely. That's what I figured. Especially if you want one of the trustees to help you or support you or review things with you in the meantime. Yeah. Okay. And feel free to like set an expectation like these are just updates. I'm working with the town administrator because otherwise we'll problem solve for you and you might not need us. Perfect. So that will

I can do that just redirect us. So So then all of these are I'm updating you. I'm on it but I want you to know. [snorts] Yeah. Um, in the same vein, um, and sorry, I would sorry interrupt, but, um, the trustees are supposed to read your report in advance. I mean, I know this was only today that I got it. That's one of the reasons we asked for the director's report a couple days in advance. Yes. So, the intent would be that you wouldn't have to go through every single item, but hit those key ones. Okay. And or Yeah. Yeah. And I only had one question on the updates from the building and ground. [snorts] Sure.

It was on the alarm calls. I know that's been going on and off and something we've we've been working on. Um, so I guess just do we use the same alarm company the rest of the town does? Is there anything around that we should be exploring too? It just feels like we've had a lot of issues with the system. I know they've been very responsive which has been great but I just something to consider as well. I don't know if we use the same as the town. I can do. We do. Okay. [snorts] Um I can reach out to Evan and see what they say.

I was just gonna say we don't you know two weeks in we don't expect you to have all the answers. So don't [laughter] don't worry about that. But I want to have all the answers. [laughter] [snorts] Good attitude. Or at least I know I I know where I can find them. Um, I did have a question about, so I saw an email that Jean had sent out on October 31st at 4:45 p.m. about the plumber having come in and she said she would send you um, an update about that and was curious to know if you had heard from her because of trying to pick up the pieces.

I don't recall we've gotten it. The last I heard was that the plumber came checked it out and thought it was a mixing valve. Okay. But I don't think I heard after that. Okay. Well, because they were coming. That's their they were going to be coming that next week or something. Yeah. But I don't remember if that was Were they coming back while Jean was still interum or was it They were They're supposed to come back that last day in the morning and they were coming back in the afternoon. We never got found out what came out of it. So, okay. You might just need to call the plumber. Okay. Do you have the plumber's information or anything? Nope. Um, do we know who it was? I I know I do. So, if I look through emails, on the punch list, there was a tab with contacts.

Okay, so if you look on the punch list, there might be a tab with contacts and there's probably one for the plumber on the the last Where does the punch list live? It's in Google Docs. I'll send you a link. We have a a hyperlink that gets to that. Okay. Yeah, that would be great. And you can take that punch list and move it if you want. I can't remember. Was Google Docs. Chris has it right now. So the Chris got moved over to the owner for for right now. They did that just so it didn't get lost. So Chris can also send it over to you if you want to regain ownership of it. And we used to have a lot of stuff on Google Docs because the town used Google Docs more. But right they've moved away from Google. So if it makes sense to move it to another platform, feel free.

Okay. No, I like Google. Yeah. [laughter] Um, I also wanted to see if I could track down the accessibility pathways sign for the front of the library. Do you remember anything about that? I would have So, I was on the building committee. I'll have to look through some of my notes because I remember there was a sign. There was supposed to be a sign that basically directed the person to the other side of the building. So, that sign is no longer there. I take it. Uh, I don't I my understanding is that it was voted on but never actually purchased

and um according to Tracy the s some of the symbols have been updated in the last four years anyway. So we'd have to sort of redo the process um entirely. Yep. So okay, which is fine. I mean, if if you can come up with a person to make that sign and to install that sign, our DPW could probably help install the sign. But great.

Okay. Um, one thing I think I should probably bring to you, so the Ampup EV chargers have been kind of a nightmare. Um, I was able to, um, pick up where Gan left off and get the information to AMP up that they were requesting. And then they said, "Well, we don't send out service providers. You need to um, open up the console yourself and here's the manual on how to fix it." [laughter] And that's consistently what they were telling Jean and like even everything she was doing wasn't working. Yeah,

I think it would be [snorts] I'd be happy to take a look at the contract if you want to send it over if that would be helpful just so we can like confirm what they are and aren't supposed to do. And I believe that contract's up in August. So, we might want to re-evaluate if we want to stick with them, see who the town's using, and then feel free to move sooner on that. Yeah. And I think this is another opportunity like where we can leverage the town's knowledge and you know hopefully pricing and have a consistent vendor you know and hopefully the one that provides better service

hopefully. Well, so part two of that discussion is um I sat on it long enough where somebody sent me a quote today saying we'll send our service people out and I didn't bother to uh follow up with her but um it's for $4,489. And who is the company? It's Control Module Incorporated. And that's what AMP up

I I guess directed. Yeah, that's what Ampup um contacted. They did say that um the quote is very high because they put everything that they might need to replace for both um uh modules, both consoles. And then usually she said they only have to replace one part, so it's much cheaper. But they like to put everything on the quote just so every just in case they have to. And it's not under warranty, I'm assuming. I don't know about that. I don't know. I mean, my opinion is that um you bring that to the town administrator. Okay.

Because if we if we end up wanting to switch to whatever else the town does, maybe we do that sooner than later. Yeah. Yep. It seems silly to spend $4,000 to fix something that we're just going to then move to some other service in August. Yeah, I agree. Although that's six months away, but and I did speak with William about it today and he said that he would be happy to get their service provider to come out and take a look at it. Yeah. Or at least get a quote as a comparison. Yeah. So, yeah, it's it seems like a racket that they, you know, like that's a lot of money for them. I mean, I was ready to turn off the the switches and go out there with a screwdriver, but [laughter]

it almost get electrocuted. It seems like Ampup provides a technology but they um rely on you know subcontract not subcontracts but you know people who are like resellers who almost will do the maintenance and support of these devices. That's what it sounds like. So that's likely why we've never heard of that company before. Yeah. If we're also up for in August, it might be an opportunity to find whoever our sales rep was and just let them know we're trying to figure out if we want to reup or not based on our service challenges. Sure. see if they provide better service, a better nonprofit price for coming out to service it.

Especially I mean we're not making money off it's a free service to I mean it's a service for the town but I mean that's a lot of money to shell out to maintain well and I mean they're what four years old and they seem to have a lot of problems. So many problems. And I I might be the model too. I don't know. Um, I haven't had a conversation with uh William yet, but I don't see these ones out here being broken all the time. Every time. I mean, they do seem to I mean, the library seems to get heavy use. I see cars there all the time.

Yeah. And I think my my boss just got an EV and he said that this one is like a six [snorts] amp charger or or megawatt or I don't know a lot about EVs. So, yeah, six amp sounds right. but it's um it's not as powerful as some of the other commercial ones you might find around. So, you know, if we do have an opportunity to get something different, I think um that the town Sorry. Yes. Um the residents would get a lot of value out of replacing them. Yeah. I don't need to leave their cars there overnight, which happens, right? Yeah. Yeah. I imagine it does. Okay.

All right. Thank you. Um, I think that's everything that I had for building. Oh, uh, Reno was here today looking at or doing some preventative maintenance um on the HVAC system, changing out the filters and that kind of thing. So, just seasonal stuff. Mhm.

Um, I did grab them for um the teen gaming room, the the back of the teen room and the old part of the building are at a whopping 55 degrees downstairs and it was 61 yesterday in the um the upstairs. So, it's been consistently cold still um which is obviously not great. uh they did not have the tools that they needed to assess. I'm sure you are all aware of the ongoing HVAC issues. There's um a disconnection between the unit that services those rooms and the rooftop unit and um I don't know, they've got to we've got to figure out the connection there. So, that's an ongoing um thing to do. [laughter] Okay.

Uh finance. So the um FY27 initial budget submission was due. I submitted that to Mary Lauria and I mean thank you to Jean honestly because um a lot of the work was already done for me. So, the finance committee had um approved like sort of pre-approved some of those numbers and uh Evan had told me that everything is um sort of level funded this year anyway. So, I just went with the numbers that were already in there and put my notes in and called it good. So, there's not too much we could do on that. So, I guess with regards to the budget, um I don't know, Doug, Rachel, if you had a chance to to look [snorts] at the budget yet, but I think it would be helpful for us maybe at a next trustee meeting or um a special trustee meeting to review the the budget together. Um because I I feel like over the past few years with, you know, the changes that we've had um it's it's kind of been a rush. So, you know, just to make sure that we're all, you know, kind of on the same page and, you know, understanding

Yeah. like what the thoughts are, you know, with regards to um you know, some of the line items. Great. So, I did meet with Mary Lauria um who is the town treasurer. Oh, yeah. Town accountant. Town treasur. Town accountant. Thank you. And um she walked me through some of the backend systems. I have yet to get access to that. So, I'll poke her on that um next week and figure out how to print those reports and get those to you um so that you have eyeballs on it as well. Wonderful. But I don't have access to that system yet. So, I'll get there. [laughter] Yeah, Mary's always very helpful. Yeah, she's wonderful.

Generating reports for us, but it would be great to have um the trustees to share a copy of with all the different breakouts of the individual departments and stuff for us to review. Yes, for sure. I can definitely and you know the trustees are available to help you review the budget um and when the finance when you meet the finance committee in early next year um you know we can support you on that as well. Thank you. Yeah, that'd be great. One of the questions I have around the finance is I feel like I haven't yet seen a report about like how much we have in state aid, how much is left, like the progress like even some of your budget like full faith it's being manageable, right? But I do think just that transparency and where we are

might proactively answer a lot of questions and keep you from having to just like read through the numbers and updates. So if there is any type of report you can set up from that that we could just like autogenerate and print out and attach for these monthly meetings. Yep. That would be awesome. Yeah, that's what we used to do in North Burrow, too. So we've we've done it in the past for these meetings, but not not in a while. Okay. Yeah, I can definitely make that happen. And Mary can generate a report on the trust account. So, there are a number of trusts that the um trustees Yeah. manage. Yeah, she had walked me through when we were logged in on her account. So, just be helpful to see. Yeah, for sure. You're right. It has been a long time.

I don't think since I've been on the board I've seen the report. So, Oh, wow. But it's just been May, so it's not that crazy. [laughter] I I can't remember [snorts] the last time we've Yeah. Doug, may I ask that we pause the meeting for just a minute for a quick uh bathroom break? I'm trying to take notes and Oh, okay. and keep up with the meeting and but I can't do both. Yeah. Sorry. Thank you. Yep. Oh, no worries. I stopped drinking at five o'clock because I knew [laughter] I would be able to.

And I [snorts] know so the trust accounts um I know we've seen one in the last maybe it was before May. Um these are you know these are um um accounts that you know someone has left money to the library in their will and stuff like that. Some of them have stipulations on them like they have to be for children's books. Um one of the bigger one larger ones has to be kind of a permanent structure. Um so like they that grant that trust funded like the glass I'm trying to think like the walkway that goes up the stairs because that wasn't in the original design. So there there are different uses that we have and it's like all trusts. I think it's like all trusts is there's like a balance that you can't touch. Yeah.

And then basically your the principal that you can't touch and then there's the um interest each year that you can expect. It would be interested to see helpful to see them as like group by restricted versus unrestricted funds because that will like what that that adjustment is that that's all in the report that Mary generates. I'm happy to take like a peek at the report before if it's helpful at all, Katrina, as you guys are iterating the view. Yeah, I've never seen it, so I'll have lots of questions. Me, too. [laughter] [snorts] But ultimately, it's just a, you know, if there's a funding request that you have or the staff has. I mean, that's just another uh funding source that we can use. Great.

Yeah, that's great. Did you choose the water bottle? I did. What [laughter] did you go with? It was uh that really pretty like mustard yellow one. Like a pink and blue top. Give me the bright colors. [laughter] They're really nice. They are. are so nice. So, this is mine. Y [laughter] public library fell off. So,

Kim told me they were falling off like that was So, if you wanted children's library sticker, we didn't always I might have to I might have to grab one of those. I didn't realize you had your very own stickers. That's so cute. Any other questions for Katrina on the budget FY27 budget? Okay. Do you have a question for us on line reimbursement? Yeah. So, I had um I know that Doug had put um under new business funding requests. So, I didn't know if you want me to move that. You can jump in there. You can jump into it now. Okay.

Um so, I can start at the bottom. So, the Line is the Library Leadership in New England um conference that I went to last Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Um the the timing was odd because I applied for the program and was accepted prior to applying to this position. Um, Ashlin did pay for it for me and then after I received the offer for this position, I did not feel comfortable having Ashlin continue to pay for it. So, I reimbured them and gave them a check. Um, I was uh encouraged by my former director to um see if you would be willing to reimburse. I understand that this is not something that you um gave consent to prior, so I like completely understand if this is not something that you're interested in doing. Um but I figured I would throw

How much is it? It was $950. So it was not cheap. May I ask um um just describe uh what it is um the program? Yeah. So it is a leadership program for um librarians in New England.

The two uh facilitators Deb Hodley and Moren Sullivan are um sort of uh experts in the field of librarianship. They've both been library directors. Um Moren is a former president of the American Library Association. Um and so they and they both have their own consulting um business in things like strategic planning and um general library consulting. So and leadership development. So they've been doing this sort of work for years and years. Um the program gathers 30 librarians um over the course of a year. So we did this initial retreat to get to know each other. Um do some uh several different um kind of segments uh around leadership topics. So things like change management and um leading into the future and you know those kinds of things. I'm happy to give you the syllabus if you're interested. But

so is the 950 for the the first three days of the program? It's for the whole program. Um so we do have several virtual meetings over the course of this year and then there is one final inperson meeting in September. That's um to be determined. It won't it's just a day meeting. It's not as fancy as the overnights. So, um, and so throughout the year, uh, we've got this group of library leaders that are going to be supporting each other and learning together and bouncing ideas off of each other. And, um, of course, we've got access to, uh, two women that I very much respect who work in the field.

And you mentioned when I met with you that one of the, um, presenters had been a library director in Massachusetts. Yes. Yeah. Deb Holdley had um and Moren actually both of them were um active in Massachusetts for many years. So is this something I think what I'm hearing is so um it's a supportive um it's a leadership train but also it seems like there's some supportive elements that may come out of this after the fact. Right. So, um, you're going to get a lot of really great contacts and networking and so, um, yeah. Right. Is that accurate? That's that's very accurate.

And I was just reading a little bit about it, too. And I think it highlights their purpose is to prepare library leaders for the challenges and what's h and like get preparing them for what's coming next. And I think the fact that you have to apply and they only take 30 people is just highlights like why we wanted to bring you in, right? If you're you're getting selected for that. So I I would feel comfortable making a motion to reimburse you for the $950 to to cover the the course. I think getting three days and four twohour sessions out of it is is good value especially as we're heading into strategic planning too.

Well, and that's the other thing too is both of them are strategic planning consultants. So, I've already picked their brains about best practices and uh ways to approach this and um gotten some additional resources for when we dive into that program. That's fantastic. I don't know if you made a formal motion, Rachel. Okay, I can I just ask you a quick question? Have you um looked at the current budget because there's typically a line item for conferences and fees and stuff, staff development or something? I have not seen um that specific line item and I was wondering if that existed. So, yeah, I mean there there usually is a budget item for staff development and those type of things, but it might not be that much. So, perhaps um

like to support this and others. Yeah, I think we're all amendable to to reimbursement, but certainly if there's if there's a budget item for this, that would probably be the first place to look. Okay. And if it's appropriate, we could table it for the next meeting. Well, I don't want to leave you out $950 if we're going to feel comfortable reimbursing you. So, I don't know if we want to like proactively vote something in that like to use the line item. And if not, I mean, I think it would have been something we would have supported, you know, before anyways, right? It's a actually I think it's a perfect opportunity for for a new director um to take the class. So I would support it um and then we could take it out of state aid.

Okay. So let me make a new motion then. I'll make a motion to reimburse Katrina for the $950 for the LLE conference um for first to be looked at from the budget if possible. If not, we can do it through state aid. Second. Motion made and seconded. Any discussion? Um, hearing none. Uh, vote by roll call. I, Rachel. I, Doug. I, Carrie. I, Aaron. I, uh, declare the motion carried.

Thank you. Appreciate it very much. um related uh but not so we are as you know having our professional development day tomorrow and um would you be willing to pay for the staff's lunch? I wasn't sure what the precedent was for that. Yeah. So I think we looked into this um and I don't think uh stated a can be used for those purposes.

Okay. So in the past um you know when there was um certain lunchons either we would someone would provide baked goods or sometimes you know um provide cookies or fruits or something almost out of our own own pockets right or sometimes we pull money so that's kind of how we've done it in the past and I think we have looked at um state aid for for last staff professional development day I thought we paid for the lunch and then some of us actually were invited to attend and I don't remember. Yeah. So I think it might not have come from state aid but I'm pretty sure that we paid for it last time. I wonder if it's in that development budget if that's

it was definitely not state aid as far as I know because we would have voted for that. I wonder if it's in the So when was trying to look through my emails I do remember that I just don't remember the funding source. Yeah. does make sense about that. It was like I don't know was it Jean was here. So was it June? It was when she started July. It was like one of her first days. It was Yeah. No. Was it her actual first day? Cuz like introduced her. No. Was it before she started and she just came for it? Maybe cuz she was starting that Monday, I think. Yeah, cuz I think it was like a weekday.

So it would have been something we voted on before. I'm sorry that I don't know. I mean, I can see an email from last year that we were questioning whether or not it could come out of state aid. Probably state aid if state aid will need to add agenda so trustees can vote on it. Approved. Doug, we've been trustees for years. I don't think we've ever paid for meals out of state aid money.

I can't remember. I think there was a reason I and I had looked I had looked that up before and actually reached out to the trustee list serve and um for a lot of I think it was more surrounding staff appreciation perhaps. Yeah. But some libraries and boards will build it into their budget. Yeah. To do um a staff appreciation um so the town you know can pay for those sort of things. But I don't think state aid can be used for those purposes. Okay. That was what I understood, but that was a while ago and I could be misremembering. That sounds right. No. Yeah. I mean,

well, I mean, it's a little different. It's not staff appreciation. It's it's a professional development day. So, it's like an actual work meeting. It's not like an after hours thing, right? But I still I I don't remember, unfortunately.

Um, when is the tomorrow? [laughter] Tomorrow. Yeah. Um, and I've been looking through some minutes, but I don't see anything. Hit the July ones. I would not be able to uh help with that tomorrow. Yeah. Flying out at 6 a.m., so Oh, all good. Well, so the the good thing is um we do have the friends gift account. So, yeah. Um, we have an alternative y

solution, but I did want to know what past practice was. And that was Can we defer it to that for now and then Aaron can reconfirm that the state aid, you know, for future? Like did you get did you check in with like the MBLC? No, I just checked with other town towns to see other towns to see how how they handle um yeah sort of you know requests. That sound reasonable? I think that's reasonable. Sorry about that. Oh, [laughter] no worries. I'm grateful to the friends. Yep. [laughter]

Um all right. And then the other funding request was regarding um the Sunday Grafton celebrates. Um the staff are working um on a Sunday and um last year were funded for time and a half um and we were wondering if that would be a possibility this year as well.

I have a couple questions. I'll just give you like a one minute background I guess based on last year. Um because we had the same request last year. Um we did have conversations with the town administrator and the town as far as payroll and stuff like that. And um it was they they from a payroll perspective, they would get staff would get paid either their normal wage or time and a half if if it was just more than their regular work week. Right. So it was it would be get paid just as if they were working a normal workday. Okay. Um

what we did last year which was a whatever they call it non-precedented setting was that the board the trustee board did vote to pay um like a stipend um to fund those um after or over time or Sunday hour work time. Okay. um as and it was a it was actually a fairly formal, you know, we had to write a letter to the um the union. So, there was like a little letter of agreement that says like the trustees are agreeing to pay this as a um as a one-time thing.

Um I don't know if there's any other comments from the trustees. I guess my only thought is I think if I remember correctly and what we've talked about in the past, we did it that last time because it was kind of last minute and so there was no expectation. So like hearing that background, my thought is we did it last year just because no one was expecting it wouldn't be time and a half and that's why we did an unprecedented setting. And so I almost feel like if we voted in that means like there now should be expecting it. And so just something to consider like if last year was truly just because it was last minute and there was no knowledge that it wouldn't be covered just are we actually looking to always do this or not is kind of the question if you do it two years in a row.

Yeah. It's I think because we haven't had any consistency with the director um because I think Tom was here at that point and um we had talked with Tom about um potentially uh bud budgeting for that. Yeah. And I don't know that that was ever done. So it might it might have been it might have been done. Um I don't remember hearing a followup from Tom, right? I would have to look back at the meeting minutes. Yeah.

Yeah. But I guess if the town says we can't be paying time and a half, like then I guess where I get like concerned is like like are we now like doing something we're not really supposed to because like it puts us in a difficult position because you know um we want to incentivize people for for working on a Sunday. Um you know because why work on a Sunday? it's your day off. Um, if there's no incentive, you know, um, do you have anything?

I mean, I think some of the responses from the town administrator is that there's a lot of other departments in town, the teachers, the recreational department that is often working after hours and they don't get time and a half on Sundays.

Um, after hours. So, for them it would be Saturday or Sunday, you know, if it's a normal Monday through Wednesday job. And I know years ago the state used to require you had to pay time and a half on Sundays and then they purposely like cut that back over time so that it wasn't like a specific day too. So, like I could understand where people were like, "Historically, you get paid time and a half on Sunday because that was the state law." But my understanding is they rolled that back year over year because the state law changed. And and again, if if the employee, let's say they're at their max hours and then they work on Sunday, they would be getting that extra time

as part of the normal payroll is my understanding.

Yeah. Yeah. So, I guess my opinion on this is um you know the the staff regularly work every other Saturday. So, they you know so they're already you know putting giving up you know part of their weekend. I know it's part of their the expectation for their job. Um but this is you know one time a year. Um and you know it you know it's it's really out of the norm to expect them to work on a Sunday. I know that you know other positions you work outside of regular hours and I know that our library staff does as well. But um this truly is kind of an extraordinary event and there was a president set prior um you know through our previous director that this was something that was compensated for. So it's

something that the staff have come to appreciate. So, I would like to to fund it, but I I understand the concerns, but I you know, I I think that this is one, you know, one day of the year where the the library staff are coming in. Some of them have you will have been working the day before. And I guess with regards to like it might put some people over the edge. It's just kind of the luck of the draw as far as like how they were scheduled that some people will get time in half and some people won't. And I don't think that's that's necessarily fair. Just if it just happens to be that you're maybe you're scheduled more the following week than the week before that it's it's going to fall that some people won't get time and half and some won't.

Can I play devil's advocate a little bit? Of course. So say you've worked your time so it's truly time and a half, right? But other people are getting time and a half and haven't worked all those hours. Shouldn't that person with time and a half get time and three quarters then? Like to be equitable, right? because they put like that's the point of of overtime is like you've gone above and beyond that week from your required hours playing devil's advocate like you're still getting above you you know so it is still a little extra for you like you know the time and half it's not like we're taking away the time and half from those people would still be having that for everybody but

yeah I wish I wish we would have discussed this like a month or two ago so that's not like the pressure because we essentially it's going to happen before our next board meeting. What's the date it happens again? December 7th.

I mean, I think I think what I'm hearing is we really should be following what the town's policy is, right? I think um years ago uh three directors ago um there was some I don't want to say under the table ways to do this but you know um there was a way that they made it happen. Um a lot of things have changed since the library has unionized too and I know Doug really um uh I want to commend Doug for really figuring out how to make that happen last year. Like you said it was um very formal in order to address uh the union to pay that in that way. Um but you know we are partnering with the town right uh they are town employees and if they're saying really there's no precedent um and any other town department you know just because we have a kitty of money doesn't necessarily mean that um you know we should be expending in that way even though we do love our staff um and we want to make sure they're appreciated.

Um so yeah that I mean that summarizes what my my impression is from the town. Yeah. And that's not to say that there's not another way we can appreciate the staff. We could do I mean we used to do staff appreciation events where we'd have people over at someone's house. We haven't had that in a couple years. Yeah. I mean for that perhaps that's a way where we celebrate the you know the library staff.

Yeah. I always like those events. Um but you know to that end is there anybody who wants to get time and a half you know who is wants extra hours you know over like the 18 hour um positions um maybe want to work on that Sunday and they'll get time and a half. I don't know if that's a way to kind of do the same thing with in just a different way. Yeah. you know,

I I mean I mean I'm hearing mixed, but I I think generally the I mean I haven't heard from you, Prau, but I get the sense that the board um I guess generally feels like this is a precedent we don't want to start and go against what the town has recommended based on the union contract. probably I saw you come off mute. Oh yeah, I'm in alignment. I I spoke once earlier. I I realized that I was on mute. Sometimes my best words come out when I'm on mute. In alignment with what I just said, you mean?

Yeah. With what is already agreed and we don't want to set a proceedings and then then we we are trying to scramble and figure out what's the way out of it. Right. So if there is a conversation, there is an alignment from the past. I would stick with that. Okay. So, the way I hear that, and please correct me if you're wrong, is that um you know, the staff would get paid their normal rate if they're within their hours or they would get time and a half if they're working overtime based on their previous working week. Okay.

If it's a big issue, I you know, there's nothing that says we can't revisit it, you know, in a special meeting. I would say too if we have like an appreciation bucket of money like coffee or what like like it doesn't mean we can't do something else or say thank you for coming on Sunday you're getting paid your norm like like you're still getting paid to do it right like we could do something like that as well if there's budget for it on your end I know you're still figuring out the budget piece yes but

but one you know on that note one of the feedback we've heard is that um you know the staff doesn't always get to see the trustees you know, don't get to see them, you know, you know, at the library or get to know the the trustees. So, it's an opportunity if we do have a staff event. I can't remember what we called it. Was it just a staff appreciation event? It was. Yeah. Um, but again, I don't know if that was really wellreceived and it used to do it before the pandemic. Yeah. Yeah. There was a period of time where I think it was wellreceived and then not so much and we just haven't revisited it since, but maybe it's a good opportunity.

Yeah. I I'd love to explore that again. So something you can talk to the staff if they would be interested in that. And again it was the trustees would um you know one of the trustees would host it or we'd host it somewhere. We could even I guess we don't want to do it at the library but host it at one of someone's house and we'd have wine and appetizers and stuff and um the significant others would be invited as well. An opportunity to get to know everybody and if they're interested Doug happy to offer my house. We already have plates for 100 and shaking dishes so happy to open up. Nice. Wow. Okay.

All right. Thank you. Um, we'll skip over the friends since Carrie already did that. Uh, I already talked about outline. Um, I attended my very first CW Mars Users Council meeting. So, um, as part of the, um, group of directors in our network, um, we all we have each of us has a voice to represent every town. Um, it was a great meeting. We voted on the budget, our membership, I just wanted to point out quickly, our membership liability increased slightly. It was like a $300 um increase. So, next year we'll be paying $22,695 um to be a part of the CW Mars network. is um was I guess in the budget. Did you find out about that after the budget was sub submitted or

uh yes, but this is always going to be part of our contractual services. So, um even though it's, you know, it's a a modest increase, I think our contracted services line item was shifted just a little bit. um thanks to Jean um who saw that that was going to be happening and we would need increases anyway. So that's great. Yeah. And you know thankfully our budget is a a bottomline budget so if we need to shift things around a little bit we can always do that. What was that cost? Uh 22,695 and that reflects a $300 increase from last year

ish. Yeah. It's uh not exactly 300 but somewhere around. Does that run calendar year the the fee? That is fiscal year. Oh, okay. Yeah. So, it'll be But it's for a full year. It'll be Yeah. But so it'll that will be assessed in FY27. Okay. [snorts]

Um I've already had um meetings with several of the town department heads including Evan and Will and Mary and Kristen. So, um getting getting my hands dirty um meeting everybody here and um of course with all of the library staff and department heads. Sorry, I put that twice. Um yeah, so it's all going fairly well, I think. And that was it. That's that's my recording. No, thank you.

You're welcome. Um you know if you have this is this has been great and you know we don't need super detailed you know it's really up to you on how much level of detail you provide. Um you can look through some of the previous director reports. Um some of the things that has included which is valuable to the board are statistics. Sure. Like um monthly statistics increases. I mean if if you can do year-over-year that's always great so we can see how trends are going. Sure. Um I don't I mean it'd be great to see the board to see that every month but you know maybe if that's a lot of work you can do it every other month or something. Oh that's great. So like circulation and door count and correct. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Attendance. Yeah.

And sometimes you know trends go up sometimes they go down sometimes they go down because you know it's a short month or something but just any commentary around that. Absolutely. And any other comments or feedback for Katrina on the director's report? Thank you for putting it together for you. Thank you for after what 11 days. Yeah, my pleasure. Yeah. And I guess just to Rachel's comment earlier just like having like the you this the budget versus actual you know spend you know in the the um balances and the accounts would be very helpful as well. Yes. Yeah. I will look into making sure that we have that for next month. Great. Thank you.

Hopefully you'll have an admin soon that can help with that. Cross my fingers. [laughter] Okay, moving on. Um Chris, since Chris was out sick today, we'll pass over the walkabout. Um new business. We've already talked about the funding requests. Um so next up would be the library director goals by Rachel.

Yes. And so we have some 90-day goals, Katrina, I'll send over to you. They're they're very late. We we chatted about them last time. The first 30 days is all the stuff you've been working to know like the staff. The next 60 days is like the town and stuff which you're already and then like the last 30 days is really like community like things you would look to like address longer term thoughts. Right. So I'll get that all over to you in writing.

Um but we wanted to look at getting goals set up um because we'll have to vote on them next meeting. I was hoping to have them ready for this call so we could talk through them. don't as I was reading the previous director's goals um I was just having trouble calibrating because I wasn't here for the previous one. So Carrie I didn't know if you'd be up for partnering with me on drafting something and then maybe Katrina we can get them to you too before the next board meeting and then sure we can all discuss and and vote if that sounds like a good process for everyone and Doug you're comfortable with it. That sounds great. Great. Sounds good to me.

Sounds good. I think the long-term goals, you know, are going to be made up of course of some of our own goals, but of course you have some input and um so want to hear from you too. Sure. And it will just be through our fiscal year. So it goes through June. So obviously they'll be shortened for that six month time period and then I think that just if you as you're going through it, right, think about maybe some goals we'll want to incorporate next year because I think when we go for the full year, right, you'll have a good sense of what you're looking to drive. we'll have a sense of a we can drive and there'll probably be a little bit more of a combination for those. Sounds good.

Yep. Sounds good. And that would be right. Um the dire the trustees are responsible for an annual review and of course the goals are key to being able to do the annual review. Sounds good. Yeah, that makes sense. Great. Thank you, Rachel. So, I have a summary that you'll work with Carrie to put together long-term review long-term goals. So, you'll review that with Katrina and then we'll get that to the board in advance of next month so that we can vote those on. Okay.

Yep. Great. Thank you. Um, next up is MLTA meeting update and board membership by Aaron. So, um, I had the opportunity to, uh, attend the Massachusetts Libraries Trustees Association, which is led by, uh, trustees around Massachusetts. Um it's a volunteer board. Um and they put together I want to say uh meetups with kind of meaningful uh speakers to speak uh to trustees and actually librarians and directors. So there were library directors there as well. Um, I've been to a number of these and um, I I do want to really emphasize how um, informational and um, valuable these are for uh, trustees really just to kind of meet some of the other you know trustees of other libraries. I mean they come all the way from Fall River and you know the Cape all the come all the way to come out to Shrewsbury which is just you know 10 minutes away for us. So I always uh personally try to make an um make a trip out um and it's it's usually on a Saturday from like 10 to two. So this was tend to on a Saturday um and you know without going into a lot of details of some of the conversations I had with people but it was really valuable. Um they had a speaker usually MBLC is there so you get the opportunity to meet the MBLC leadership which is the Mass Board of Library Commissioners. Um Rob Favveni uh he spoke for for a while um really about what's happening at the state level. Um and I have a bunch of chicken scratch here and I'm going to do my best to go through it. But um they said that the state revenue was meeting its benchmarks but you know due to a slowing economy um they you know I think it's the speaker of the house or whoever it

is has the ability to do the 9C cuts and that's basically if they feel that they the budget's not balanced because it has to be done by law they have some the power to just start slashing the budget right so there's always the danger of that does that kind of ring a bell if anybody wants to speak more um accurately on that. Please please chime in. Um but he talked about um the budget ask um the MBLC is about you know 3% and that's mostly covers their their salaries and whatnot. Um regional local aid u which is the delivery service that we get you know um from other libraries. Um so that's also on the budget. Um the talking book uh with a per Perkins library um uh is also on on the budget. Uh and then library local aid is at 5% funded at 5% which previously was 10%. So they've already um reduced that by quite a bit. And then the Massachusetts Center for the Book um so if if anybody wants to know more about what I'm talking about there's a really great website. It's called the um and I can pull it up right here if you want me to just pop it over

the mlta.org. Um sorry I don't have my adapter but it's um the mblc legislativeaggenda.com um which talks about a lot of um you know what's uh on the budget um and it shows the the fiscal year 2024 and 2025 and the proposed increases for each of those line items. Um, so if anybody wants to pull that up on their own computers and take a quick peek at that, um, that may kind of tie in uh, what I'm talking about. So, so that they're saying that state aid is going to be cut in half. Is that I don't think the library [snorts] local aid um, is is state aid. I could be wrong.

I haven't heard anything about state aid being cut in half. We've already received our um we haven't received our reward letter but um the first round of applicants have and from what I can tell that hasn't been decreased by half. So, I'm not sure what that funds. I know it sounds like it's it's state aid, but I don't believe that it is. Request it looks like everything's they are proposing increases for

Yeah. Um I think historically it was 10%, now it's 5%. So, um so that's already been cut. I think maybe that's why my notes say it was 10%, not that it was last year 10%, now it's 5%. Okay,

I could be misunderstanding. So, um that's a great resource if you want to see what's happening at the state level. They talked a little bit about bills and how um a bill can take like a year and a half to get passed or two years. It's a really long time when it's um certainly proposed and then um all the different cycles and and um and amendments um to get that bill passed. And really what's interesting is anybody can propose a bill as long as you know um it's it's championed by you know your your your representative which was pretty interesting. So um you really kind of get a sense of of how things operate at the state level um you know for for libraries. Uh the other thing that was uh really quite interesting is how to interface with um your leaders and legislators. Right. So, first and foremost, um, and I think we're doing a fantastic job now, um, is really starting to talk to the town administrator, right, more often. So, they they mentioned that as something that every library board should do. They said, um, invite the TA to at least one trustee meeting uh, a year, right? So, I'm glad that we're doing that, you know, potentially more often and at least um our board leadership is meeting um with the town administrator's office. Um uh meeting with with our legislators, right? Um you can if you can't get the ear of your legislator, then you can also meet with their aids, which is just as effective because the aids have the ear of the legislators and help kind of um you know uh broker that communication. Um they also said that we can have we can host uh office hours for our district uh at our library so that we can actually have our um legislators come and and you have a have a room or an office where the public can come and and and and they can hold court.

So that's a really great way to um you know um get the ear of our legislators.

Yeah, that's a good idea. That's a great idea. Um and then they also said for at the local level um meet with our select board once a year. So I think when I was um the chair uh I'd met with them once and it was really just because they they had been asking all the town boards and committees to provide a report of their operations um to to the board and that was several years ago. Um but this is actually saying that um we should meet with them once a year which I mean that probably means getting on their agenda for a meeting perhaps to do a similar just you know here's the state of the library

um and a lot of um there's I want to say there's a lot of um people who stay on the um the select board year-over-year. It's also a lot of new people who don't know what the library trustees do, right? So, I think it's important to always get in front of um the board and and foster that relationship. Sorry, the um yes, the select board. That's a good idea. And then also to it would be great to introduce Katrina to the select board as well, just so she

Yeah, I can reach out to the select board. Um is it who's the chair? It's not Andy. Um I remember who the chair is. Um, it's not Craig, but anyway, I could reach out to them and just see what they suggest like either having a couple of them come to our meeting or a couple of us go to their meeting and do like a report. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we should know really just if if it's not if one of us is going to present to the to the board, we would all just be there kind of support. Yeah. I would say that would be kind of the way to go about it. Um, yeah, I know I've been skipping around a lot. Andy Andy's the chair at least according to the website.

Yeah. Um so yeah so uh I think so Rob Favini was talking about the state level um but I forget who was kind of leading us kind of through the rest of um you know the different bills and and how we can advocate um um oh they said chamber of commerce might be one one area that we can also partner with uh the ROI the Rotary Club um and actually putting stats from the library in the local paper, right? So um I think um they would love to have some contact from the library.

Local paper. [laughter] Yeah, I know. I know. But even even stats on like our website every once in a while. Yeah. Um in some boards they even produce like a quarterly report, right? So just getting some information out and available to people as ways that we can um let them know what we're doing at the library. Okay.

Um so that was kind of there's a lot of content there. It's very valuable. I think more trustees should go. In that being said, um they do uh ask that um trustees can either um join as a um an individual contributor or join as a board and uh the last time we um had had joined the MLTA was back in 2023 and we joined as a board and those can um that was in 2023 is funded out of state aid. So for a year uh it's $100 uh for the board uh membership. So um

well that certainly seems worthwhile. It's a $100 for the entire board, right? How much was the individual um 25? It was it 25? Yeah. Right. So, um, if there's no other questions or commentary, I'd like to make a motion to, um, fund from state aid, uh, $100 for the board membership, um, for the MLTA. I'll second that. Okay. Motion made and seconded. Any further discussion?

I guess I have some some questions on it. So, like, can you just walk us through quick, Erin? Like what we get out of it, what like we're committing ourselves to have to do? like do we have to then make sure we have representations at all the meetings like like what's the like what do we get out of that?

That's a great point. So um if we are members in good standing then we can vote on their leadership um which is really not not a lot anyways. um they have a very short um meeting at the beginning of the MLTA annual meeting where they usually just vote vote in their leadership and then um they go over the treasurer's report. So very similar to how the friends operate as a as a um volunteer board.

Um so that's about it and it's really just to um support the group and support um and fund really uh the ability to bring in really great speakers and content. So, if we had So, you said it's $25 for one person to attend a meeting. And how often are the meetings? Um, it's an annual I've only been to the annual meeting. It says board meetings are held virtually once a month. Yes. And then the annual meeting. Yeah. So, you could um meet with their board once a month. Yeah. I mean, I certainly think it's a great idea to have multiple trustees attending these. Maybe not at the same time, but throughout the year.

Okay. Um, but I'm also okay with funding membership because if if it's a a group that is going to give us a lot of good valuable information and something that we can reach out to some of their members for questions, I mean, I think it's worth funding. Yeah, we can continue to attend these meetings still, not and and not fund and be members, right? It's more just um to support, you know, the the group. Yeah. Yeah. I guess my only thoughts I just want to make sure that like we're actually like going and utilizing it. Yeah. If we're going to spend $100 on it. Um

so I think if we like look at the schedule and we're like people are able to say yes, I can be there and make it I'd feel more comfortable spending the $100. But if we don't have like board teed up and like ready to say yes to certain ones, I I I'd be hesitant to vote it in if we're not going to be able to make it. So I don't know if there's like a timeline we have to do it now if we have we can get those dates and times and then Well, the the next the next annual meeting will probably be next year like around November 1st. Yeah. Right. So we could try to plan

Yeah. whoever can make it. And then if we think we're going to have a quorum, we would have to I guess post it as like a meeting, right? I mean, I' I'd be willing to attend. I mean, we have a motion on the right. We have a motion out there. Any other comments on funding? I mean, I agree. I mean, it is something we'd want to take take advantage of. So we'd want to make sure that we attend, you know, at least have someone attend the the the virtual meetings once a month and then certainly attend the annual meeting

and trying to understand what else the doesn't really say what your membership gets you on the website except it's probably like membership to the friends. It's just money that can support their like you said support them bringing in speakers and making content and stuff. Yeah, I I think they managed just a very small um budget. It wasn't a lot of money. It was maybe $3,000. Yeah, I think mostly based on membership fees.

Any other questions or discussion on the motion? Well, I think we put it to a vote. Um uh all those in favor by roll call. Proble. Rachel I Doug I Carrie I Aaron I Erin I I declare the motion carried. Thank you for that update. Um I think it would be great if you could put that in writing Aaron like a bulleted update about what you just discussed and then circulate it to the board. Yes. If that's going to be easy for you to do that. I don't even understand some of my notes [laughter] because you know when you're just listening you're just writing

but even like you know links to the websites like here's the site to MBLTA which you you shared in um yeah I actually just sent a request for the monthly meeting and then if Yeah I guess just when the monthly meetings are just so we can make sure we have a representative there we're spending the money. Yep. Very good. Um, thank you for attending and I'll admit I haven't been there in a couple years or so. Um, I'll try to make a note to go next time. I did meet the new director of the Auburn um, public library and he did offer to be a resource for you as well. I think you and I had talked about that

um because I think he had a similar growth path as well um because he was at the Shrewbury um, public library as assistant um, library director. Okay. Again, another area where there's an assistant library director. um even with a much smaller staff too. So again, you know, there may be room to look at our um staffing structure. Mhm. Right.

Okay. Um moving on in the agenda, we already had the um discussion with the town administrator's office. So moving on to other business, the capital camp is are there any updates from the capital campaign? So other than the table being assembled, um I don't have any other at this point in time. I'm sure we'll need to schedule a meeting sometime fairly soon. So I I'll reach out to Dana and see Yep. what makes sense for that. And just for background on the capital campaign, this was a you know, it's a 501c3 organization that raised monies um primarily around the renovation project. It funded a lot of the especially a lot of the exterior, the grounds, the patios, um the walkways,

the the garden, the um the green roof and some interior stuff, too. Um but anyway, the and so there was a lot of expenses um that a lot of projects that were funded, but there's still money in the capital campaign. the C capital campaign still exists. So, um it's another funding source for you and the library staff um typically around, you know, larger projects. Makes sense. Um great. Thank you. All right. Um no public input, Cindy. None that I have at this moment. Thank you. Yeah. [laughter] And I don't think we have any I don't know. Do we have anyone on Zoom?

I can't actually see. I got promoted to host, but I can't see. Prau, can you see if there's anyone like Well, they haven't spoken up. I guess they haven't. Well, if they didn't get No, there's no one. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Um, great. So, our next meetings, um, as mentioned, the friends next meeting is December 9th um, policy subcommittee. Are you is December 2nd the right date?

That would be Tuesday. Yeah. I don't know that we've officially scheduled it. Okay. Um but looking at the calendar, I would say that um we can pencil that in uh as our next meeting date and then uh the committee members will decide if um you know we can all meet that that evening. But I think we did say um you said the second. Oh. Um, we can probably start meeting Wednesdays again because I don't have a class on on Wednesday anymore. Okay. So, it would be December 3rd. Well, if any of the trustees are interested in joining the policy committee or not joining but attending um be sure to double check the date.

Yeah. Y and PBU is part of it. Right. Right. You said PBU is um voluntu. You volunteered to be on the policy subcommittee with Aaron. Yeah. Yep. Great. only because I'm Sarah. Yep, that's right. [laughter] And you're still looking for staff members? Always. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Thank you.

Uh and then our next um board meeting is the week before Christmas, unless you guys I don't think anyone wanted to meet on Christmas Eve. So, December 17th, 7 o'clock in this room. Um we'll continue on hybrid. Um I was considering um putting on [snorts] next month's agenda um the option of to remove the hybrid meeting. Um I know Prau you're the one that is probably most impacted. So I can have that offline discussion with you um because we certainly don't want to um lose you if you're not going to be able to make most u monthly meetings. Um otherwise I'll entertain a motion to adjurnn.

So moved. Motion made and seconded. Um those in favor by roll call. Proble I. Rachel I. Doug I. Carrie I. Aaron I. I declare the motion carried. Um I um 907 907 adjournment. Thank you everybody. Thank you.