Library Board of Trustees - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everybody. It is Monday, April 13. This is the official meeting meeting for the Middleborough Library Board of Trustees April reading. I'm calling the meeting to order and seeing we have a couple trustees that have already advised us we're running late, I'm gonna ask somebody to make the motion for a temporary recess. So moved. So moved. Is there a second? Second. I don't know if we can even vote on that. But it it we'll we'll wait and we'll give them about ten minutes and you're gonna have to leave the camera running because we have officially started.

I not sure if we can let the candidates speak, and it would probably wouldn't make sense.

Is there anything we can do without a quorum? Oh. Besides the candidates, obviously.

We could do we could do quorums.

Just a quorum?

K. Well, then no. Because you No.

We have Bushnell. Yeah, no, you're right. And the article

on the agenda. So I guess we're gonna just keep in a holding pattern. Hopefully people won't fall asleep watching our show.

Is there any correspondence? No.

Okay. I I would well actually I was gonna have no that was the committee reports. I don't I don't I don't wanna go outside of the agenda without, enough enough people to to make a motion to I think we've already crossed that line a little bit. We have too many many people here already, so I wanna make sure we can get this off. I think one thing I can do is I can speak with the the trustee wannabes.

I think I've explained this all to you before, but just to as a reiteration, we do not make the appointment. The appointment is made by the select board. So our our role here today is to kind of screen it screen the four of you as candidates. Candidates. It's going to be a probably a little uncomfortable for you and for us because we will also in open session pick one of you.

So so, you know, it's it's kind of very awkward thing but it's something we've been doing for a while, we will then once we make that recommendation or vote on a recommendation I have to send a letter letter to the select board with your credentials and whatnot. I would ask and and we'll take this up more in the actual article. I would ask that each of you who is not selected be be okay with us maintaining your name for a future opening should there be any. That's it. The the the term that you would be selected for tonight is for trustee that is term is expires in June '28, so it would be a little better than a two year term.

All other terms, if you're if you if you terms are three years. So and it's run staggered so that we don't lose everybody all at once. So Ellie was going to expire on 06/3028, but she had stepped down for personal reasons. And with that, I'll be quiet until we have a quorum. Till I could get done.

Just out of curiosity, can we pause and go into recess? The pause recording and go into recess?

Because it's No.

I I dare not I I understand. There's no way of showing what happened in the No. It's it's not like we went into an executive session chair. They they posted

If I may, legally speaking, I have to record all of these meetings. It's it's like a it's a legal thing. I have to record it because of open meeting loss, and we can't pause it or alter it in any way.

So Right. Gotcha.

Okay. Because you call the meeting to your

order, it's gonna stay on. Yeah. The oh, I I had to do that because it's 06:00. The yeah. I think the exception to that is when you go into an executive session, but you would also note that. Yeah. So okay. This is kinda like college, and you take ten minutes, and if the trough doesn't show, you get to go home. At least in high school, that's all. You have packets there if you wanna take the time to go through them.

Yeah. We we're gonna need the other two one of the other two to to approve some of these minutes as well.

Tada. Mister chair, I apologize for my tardiness.

You are forgiven. Thank you. With the arrival of our late trustee pardon, trustee, we now have a quorum, so I would suggest that we're done. I've already called the unit. Excellent.

I suppose I could do it again just so that you can hear, but no. First item is the approval of the minutes and going through I got to refer to actually, Actually, there's enough people here that were also present at the meeting so that if we so desire to approve the minutes, we have enough people to do that, to do that. So the first one would be the the meeting of March 9. Any any discussion on that?

Motion to approve.

Second. Sure.

Any further discussion? All those Technically, should I be asking the audience if you have any questions or any comments on this before we vote or more than what welcome to do that. Anybody?

So Can you read them? Just a quick question. What are

you what about the experiment?

Right now, we're on page five of your document, and it's just to approve the minutes. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor,

aye.

Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? And also an aye for the record. Page seven. This is a split split minutes because we did in fact go into an executive session. March 16. We will do the open session minutes after we do this one. I wonder if we should do the open meeting first. It doesn't matter. We're gonna do that. We're gonna do this one first. The actual meeting of so this is page seven.

I'll make a motion to approve the 03/16/2026 open meeting

notes. Second. Any discussion? Any discussion from the gallery? We'll call you the gallery.

Hearing none. All those in favor? Aye. I'm an aye. All those opposed? Any abstention? Approved. The executive session is on the back of that. It's not a numbered page. Would be a.

The executive session was an executive session because we are doing a contract negotiation for the soon to start start, new director who is in town by the way. So Do I have a motion?

I'll make a motion to approve the executive session meeting minutes and approve for release to the public. Okay.

Is there a second?

Second.

Motion's made and seconded. Is there any comment from the gallery? Other than the gallery, there is no other public, but I I did inform you that you are okay to to comment on each item. Correspondence, I'm gonna say there's none. Treasurer's report. Okay.

So you have the financial report. We are on track with our budget for this year.

Hold on. We're on page nine. K.

We're on track with spending for our budget this year. We're down to 27% unspent. We

do have a

lot more left in personnel because we didn't hire a tech recently, but we do but we are having more building repairs, and we're definitely on track with our material expenditures as well, so we should have no problem meeting our municipal appropriations and our material expenditure requirements, for this fiscal year. I have not yet received the quarterly special accounts report that is usually given to us by the town. I asked about that so that I could reconcile everything before Beth starts. They haven't quite gotten it yet, so I don't know if I'll have it before she comes. So that's why some of the special, the revolving capital and grant funds still haven't really changed much because I haven't had those to reconcile with.

And so, hopefully, those will be done next month. The trust report, we're up to date for the endowment. Numbers down below, and I have not received the bank account. They usually come a couple days after this meeting, so I could never really reconcile the top section with the bank account spending. I know that Randy used to have sometimes, I think you guys met on the third Monday third Monday that that might be better, going forward maybe because these could be more these could be more updated.

Yeah. We did talk about that at some time. Maybe we'll

put that up. Timing is like I literally got the endowment thing this morning. They always come on a Monday of the meeting, so it's hard if I've given you the pay the documents over the weekend.

We can talk a lot some minutes. Yeah. Future future meetings.

Yeah. So alright. So that's where we are with the financial report.

I'll make a motion to accept.

Second.

Motion's made and seconded for the gallery. This is basically, rehashing of all the the various numbers that the the library is looking at for the month. We can get into more details once you, really get into the position. Motion's made and seconded. Any further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? I am also aye.

Committee reports, well he's not truly a committee, he's kind of a committee of one. I'm gonna ask John to update us on the HVAC project because he does attend their meetings when he can.

There there was a meeting last week, last Wednesday. The main purpose of it was to look at an air handler unit in the upstairs mechanical room, ERV Number 3, which needs to be slightly relocated relocated differently from how the plans were drawn. At the end of the meeting, I think everybody involved, we had the engineer, the HVAC crew, the project manager, every and facilities was was on-site as well. Everybody was on the same page that they've got a working plan. The engineer was gonna draw up a new drawing that would that would accommodate that and the impact to the overall project would be minimal.

That was my next question. Yeah.

We have to wait and see. Okay. You know, we have to get the the new drawing. We'll have the the OPM review it, facilities review it as well.

The unit's already there? It's already up?

The unit is not there. I I'm sure they've if they haven't I don't want to say if they've ordered it or not. I'm sure they've ordered it. They may not have received it yet. It's but it's not in place. It's just a it's a redesign to get it to position correctly. It sounds sounds like if this plan works the way they thought it would in the field, it will be minimal cost difference or or no cost difference, but we'll And then We'll see what happens.

Not because you give us money back.

The when the but it it doesn't seem like it's gonna be a

I have a question, Jonathan.

You mentioned a few months ago we might need crane work this spring. Do you know if that's still potential?

There will be crane work. There wasn't an update on it last week. There's a chance that they might be rethinking that as well with some smaller smaller equipment that they can get in closer to the building. I didn't get an an answer last week on that, so we don't have to vote on anything today, but eventually they will have to get equipment onto the roof, but

Okay.

We don't have a schedule for it.

Sounds good.

What they were talking about was did sound positive.

Okay.

Any other committee reports I can't believe? So director's report. Okay.

So page 13, we are doing great with our spending from the the corporate Sylvia trust money. We're over 50%, so we're doing well with that. I recently looked at all of our materials and made sure that we're on target, including the Sylvia Trust money, and it it looks really good. And our department heads who are doing collection development are on top of things. Everybody knows that currently we're facing a financial crisis in town, and so all the department heads were asked to meet with the town manager.

March 30 is when I met with him. And with the help of Randy, we put together a 5%, 10%, and 20% budget, two to three different budgets with those cuts, as well as the impact statement, and and, we will see what happens with that over the next week or so. The two thousand twenty five Namasket week, has now been digitized, and we have the full year, available through our website. And it will soon be available for people, to access from home, as well as here in the library. So that's kind of a nice, feature that we have.

As far as personnel, our union stewards have been meeting. They met in March. Our department heads, we met with them as well. And we also conducted a summer reading meeting recently because we're we're gearing up for summer reading, which is always a highlight here. So this year's theme is plant a seed read.

So it's all about farm table and nourishing the mind through reading and books and and that kind of topic. So we're in the midst of trying to get a sponsor and do our themed programming, so that's exciting. So we'll see how that goes. As far as the hiring of a circulation technician, as I mentioned previously, we had made it almost to the end of the process, and we're about to make an offer to one of the candidates that we selected, but that was the day that they put the hiring freeze on. So we do not have a full time cert tech, and we are doing what we can, and the staff is doing great, juggling and being flexible.

Our new director, Beth Payne, is starting this week, and I will be stepping down. Officially, her first day is April 15, so she'll be doing her onboarding process with the town. Her first full day, though, will be Thursday. So I'll be transitioning her to the position and sharing what I know with her so that, she'll be ready to go. So that will be exciting. We're looking forward to having her here. For programming outreach, I've attached the flyers that you guys have seen. Here's a

few

pictures that miss Amanda has shared with us. Children's programming in March, they did their ever popular leprechaun trap making workshop with 88 people attending.

88?

It just keeps getting bigger and So yeah.

It's amazing.

Do you ever catch any?

That's a good question. But, like, we stockpile all of the tissue box and the, you know,

the paper toilet rolls all here, and, you

know, we just we're falling out

of the cabinets.

They're all hoarded in

the Right.

Because it just gets so

people love it. And we also had 50 people attend the Bear Finds Eggs story time, and they hid eggs all around with little fun things in them around in the kids' room, and so we had a lot of, 50 people doing coordinate with the schools, the mid Middles and Nichols school Nichols Middle School has a middle world mania event where they have local wrestlers come. So we did miss Amanda did a story time, a wrestling story time where some of them came and read stories to the kids. And the kids were so delighted. They got their autographs, took photos with them, and they got to see them in their outfits and stuff.

So that was great. And then miss Amanda did a lot of outreach, through the schools, read across America week. She went over there, did outreach. There's also the MEC preschool programs and a literacy night that she attended too. And then the town wide community baby shower event, we also put a lot of literature and information there for for the library to help welcome people who are celebrating at UV.

And then her Olympic bingo reading challenge, which ended in mid March, she did she got an increase in participants from 55 to, 91 kids, so that's great. And those kids all completed bingo sheets and read and did other activities, in order to get, surprises. So that was great. And then our adult reference librarian had a northeast house historian, Marion Pierre Louis, who came, and she actually took an a Middleborough, an actual Middleborough house Mhmm. And she walked through the steps of how you can research your house's history, which that's so popular.

People are always coming in and doing genealogical research and looking for local history and wanting to know, does my house have history? So Meg was able to learn a lot of resources from her as well so that she can apply that to people that she helps who come in with those same kind of questions. So that was great. We had I think it was about 46 people who attended

that. So

because for the building, the building has been my friend this past two months.

My friend. We did

to accomplish a few, tasks that had started when Randy was here. The donor or the plaques, the plaque boards that were over the computer area have now been returned and installed. They've been cleaned and fixed, so, that's been completed. We had our roofer come a few times, because of some leaks that, you know, were plaguing us near the HVAC area and also in our young adult area, but those have now been fixed. And mostly, it's the same kind of issue with the transition edge metal, that's coming up, and then the rain is kind of seeping in there.

So he also found some splits in the flashing and repaired those. These are things that are sort of, like, temporary fixes. Like, you know, the roof could use some bigger maintenance in, you know, in the future, as well. But he worked around the HVAC, what they didn't want him to, you know, touch so that, you know, when

they tear the roof off, they're

not gonna be tearing off the new patches. For our sprinkler repair, those were the pipes down in the Tech room. There was one specific that they found that had been leaking, and so they did, repair that. The Yankee fire sprinkler company was in here, like, a week or two right before this repair to do their annual fire inspection and alarm inspection. And so they gave a list of all these other smaller little things that needed to be fixed.

So when they came back to do this actual repair, they did fix some of those other minor things too, and I listed some of them with sprinkler head, there's a gauge, and then a new sign outside that, near the, one of the fixtures that they added. That's

done,

and it was done for less money than was estimated, so instead of 4,000, it was like 3,000, so and the elevator, of course, broke down at one point too, and so we so it wouldn't work one day, and so I called in our elevator company, and they fixed the faulty switch that was on there. So that was, another expense, but, under $1,000.

So How much downtime for the elevator?

So it happened on a Friday afternoon, and then we made lots of signs that said call this number, and we will come down. Like, we put them outside. We put on the doors so that if anyone needed assistance, they could call their phone and we would come down and help them.

Oh, so the elevator worked?

No. I mean, so if they made it to the front door and then they needed to get up the main stairs there, we had a number they could you know, the library's number so that we could come and get stuff for them or get whatever they needed. So from Friday after I think it was pretty much Friday, didn't we didn't lose any time, but Saturday, we didn't have the elevator working. So then they came in on Monday

Okay. To fix that. And

that's the update. Questions for the director?

There's a motion for

I move we accept the director's report as presented. Second.

Motion made and seconded. Any gallery? No. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Okay. Three one, full business. Before we jump into that, I'm gonna ask each of the candidates to introduce themselves, but we're gonna introduce ourselves first. I'll start. I'm Jim Alburita. I'm the chair. I've been on this board a long time. Diane

Stewart. I've been on since 2021, I think.

Sherry Hatlen Neely, ten plus years on the board.

John Costello, I've been on since 2024. I'm a treasurer.

Do I Yeah. Well,

I'm sergeant list, interim library director and the young adult librarian here at the library.

I've been

here for thirty years.

Jen Pollan, and I've been on the board since October 2024.

Ashley, I'm the clerk, and I've been on since June 2022.

Twenty five years.

Yeah.

Brain cell popped up. So I'm not sure how you four want to introduce yourselves. I mean, you can do it. Let's just do it one at a time. Who's here first? First. Yeah. You're up first. This is gonna be like an honor system. Whoever was first goes first.

Do what? An introduction?

Introduce yourself in in, you know, in seven words or less, tell us why

you don't.

Okay. Just real quick. This is your this is your shining moment. This is it's happening. Yes. Yeah.

I'm Harlow Snyder. I've

lived in the

home seven years, so I've got a townie. I think that that some of that is a plus because I don't have any preconceived notions about some of the things that go on in a small town especially. My background, I just retired a year ago last June. I have twenty five years plus in regulatory compliance, in the banking industry, and community reinvestment and fair lending. So one of the things I thought I could bring as a different perspective to the board of trustees is the ability to really focus on community reinvestment.

My passion is service to low and moderate income homeowners, residents, individuals, families. And I think a critical role a library plays with those individuals and families is they're a resource. We're a resource for them in terms of continuing education. You know, I my the last thing I could work for is was headquartered in Weymouth and,

you know,

we had a presence. We you know, one of the things I did as a lower income, fair lending, community reinvestment act officer was to look at our our census tracks focus our attention when it comes to things like that. And, you know, one of the biggest deficits is children's books, resources for children. And we, you know, we spent a lot of time building up libraries. I was involved in organizing and hosting and participating in financial literacy fairs, and we did them all at

the high school. We called them a

predator for life. It's It's hard to sign a check. So because there are times when you're still trying to check. I mean, you know, since I've come to Middleborough, I work downstairs in the bookseller. So I do that. And we have a great group of who are down there and and a few counties who keep me up to date. I'm now an official elections official. I worked my first election last Saturday. I'm in Precinct 33. We sat in the fire department.

So that was fun. And I do teach. I'm an adjunct senior adjunct faculty member at what is now known as Bay University. Well, Bay Path, you probably are familiar with Bay Path throughout the Western part of the state. They're a nursing, primarily all female nursing school.

They wanted to bring in some co ed opportunities in business programs, so they acquired Cambridge College, who's who I worked for. I've been doing that for ten years now. I teach in a master's of ethics program, and then I teach a lot of undergraduate business and finance classes. So my master's is an old fashioned MBA back from the dark ages. And so I do have the academic background as well in finance and operations and some some of of the the disciplines that you are looking for. And, of course, as a regulatory compliance officer in banking, you know, we touched I I always called us

a black hole because we cost a lot

of money, but we didn't generate revenue. But we you as a senior officer, we you know,

I was always I was involved

in board meetings and budget meetings. I do things more efficiently, and

a

lot things of happening with artificial intelligence, which is can be good and bad. So that that, you know, getting involved although I was getting involved in that that area. And as a teacher, it's very interesting to see detecting AI from, you know, individuals creates learning skills. And and, you know, and up close here, one of the things I always find is that there's a lot of English as a second language students that I have and they're trying to do a career development and it's it's a real balancing act because what what I focus on is content as opposed to literacy but inevitably you have to coach that piece of it as well. And I find that we do a lot of whiteboarding discussion posts.

We'll be in one sort of fluency, a flow, and then all of a sudden, they get these papers that were written by an associate professor look like. So that's where that's where artificial intelligence starts to make me a little nervous in, you know, the ongoing education and financial literacy of our next generation.

Question? I have one quick one. Did you say Bay Path University?

Yes. Bye. I grew up

in Western Mass. I knew it I knew it as big as college. Oh. Again, I'm again, I'm

dating myself. Everybody I grew up everybody. Everything is university.

Every state school, university.

It's like State College.

Yeah. Right.

I know. I know. Alright. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Who's second?

List was headed to Idaho, still in my support.

I have 26 of

special education behavior analysis, working on first response, working in tax and probate law firm. I've worn many hats. I had the honor of working at Bridgewater State's library for five years as a student under president Tinsley, and, grants and funding changed. They couldn't accept me on, so that's all when I graduated. I had to pursue a different path.

But I I learned the day to day operations of a library, special collections, educational resource center, budgeting, finance, fundraising through through the Red Cross, through special education, through working in public municipalities, as well as privately as an ABA therapist. I guess what makes me stand out is that everyone here is a good candidate. I truly care about the welfare of this town and the children that we're servicing here. There's so much need. This library, I just have to say, has done a phenomenal job for a very long time.

I saw this get built with the yellow brick road fundraiser back in the nineties. This is a special place in my heart. I want to be where I can serve best in whatever role I need to serve. I I have a little bit of experience touched upon in every area, but my main push is that we continue to keep it at the standard that it is, but expand in the world. We're going into AI, like you mentioned.

We're living in a brave new world. We're dealing with a lot of setbacks, but I do believe this town can come together with new innovation and work as a team. You know, I'm I'm able to reach out and fundraise. I'm very good with networking. I'm very good at, you know, helping operate a budget or finding a creative way to maybe fill in a gap that's really needed, whether it's the structure of the day to day operations of the library, the physical structure, getting the children's library flowing and thriving, working with collections to make sure that things stay calm and reaching the needs of every individual.

This is a place of peace for people. This is a place of, you know, respite. This is a place where it's kind of neutral territory that people can come together to to get what they need. When I was doing m summit retired, when I was doing ABA, this was an open arms where I was doing direct services with some of the populations in this town. I've seen incredible things happen over decades and decades.

I've lived away, lived in Texas, and I've come back because this was my foundation. That's you know, I didn't I wasn't born in Middleborough, but this was my foundation, and I will never forget that is to offer a life of service. And it's where it's needed the most is here because I know that this represents so many things outside these walls. And regardless of what happens today, I have all hope in the rooms. Thank you so much. Thank

you. Okay.

Hi, I'm Heidi McAlvis, I am a Tommy.

I lived here since first grade.

I remember coming to the library when the children's library was the teen hangout spot, so this has always been a source a resource for me. Like, back when we came, you needed to do research papers. You looked at encyclopedias. And then I have one son and going through the children's library with him. So I've always found to use your words that this as a place of respite.

Every Every time you come in, there's a warm greeting, knowledgeable staff. I I'm never disappointed with my visits here at the library. I've tried to participate in some of the community fund raising events with the bingo, the not bingo, the miniature golf night that we had a few years ago and just a lot of fun activities. I've always been a regular donate donate or donor to the friends of the library and that whole thing falling apart. I'm not quite sure what went wrong or how, but, you know, that was a bit gut wrenching to think that, you know, something that we had supported so many years didn't didn't wasn't going the way it should have gone.

I'm newly retired as well. I have my, professional background has been in human resource management, most recently at a BNA in Fairhaven. So I've always which was nonprofit. So from my only human resource role, I've learned the value of just being empathetic, being open to communications, open to new ideas, being able to work with a team to troubleshoot and problem solve. And then I also had sort of financial oversight to manage a very tight budget in a nonprofit organization, so I do understand finances and how to make the most of what you have and also think on some fundraising for a nonprofit.

As far as town volunteer experience, many moons ago, I volunteered when we did not have a personnel director or HR director in the town. I did a couple years service on the personnel board here. So I had a, you know, got a touch of experience with how the town hall of town board, and that was also a volunteer. So, you know, really, goal here is this has always been a very positive place for me. I still enjoy it to this day, and I have the time as a newly retired person to devote my energies to something.

I don't have a prior specific agenda or thought of how I might fit in, but I'm just open to being there and figuring that out along the way, learning from the long service board members and also bringing my, you know, thoughts, ideas, practices from all professional life in whatever way makes sense. Thank you. That's nice too.

I guess I'll be Sarah.

Get the machine last. Just wanna say, I don't see how you can lose no matter who you choose. This is quite a quite a great group. And I wanna thank you for working the election. So I just wanna say I did run for another office in town and, for the housing authority.

And so I'm on the housing authority, but it's clear to me that there's not gonna be a conflict of schedules, really, because they meet once a month at a different day of the week. So, long history of working with libraries. When I was an undergraduate at Northwestern, in the early seventies, they were short on staff, and I ended up organizing the Technological Institute library as

an

undergraduate student, and, they actually had that system for a long time after I graduated. I went to work when I came to Massachusetts, in a state psychiatric hospital, Metropolitan State Hospital in Longmead, and I was their medical and medications librarian. And about five years and six years in, I decided to put the two libraries together and, do it as cheaply as possible. And part of that meant getting a grant from the board of library commissioners, which is the funding agency in, Massachusetts and also establishes policies and guidelines. And, so that meant I had to go to Simmons College and get a degree, and I did got grants and set up the libraries.

And then, about eight years into this, I ended up going to work for the board of library commissioners as a consultant. And I turned around, and I'm the consultant that teaches libraries how to offer services to people with disabilities to, you know, special needs populations to, you know, all kinds of different specialized projects. And and I did that, till I started a family. And so after I started the family and when I could take a breath and the kids were able to talk and go to school, I ended up teaching, as a special education teacher aide, and I also joined the, board of trustees for the Midfield Public Library, and that's an elected position. That's an old town election.

And I ran twice. I got in for, two, three year terms. And during that time, we were renovating and adding on to the town's Carnegie Library, which the town had completely outgrown. And, so I've been through a a construction

stopped serving as a as a board member at the

end end of of my my second second term. Term, And after September 11, I entered divinity school. And I am that was my second master's, a master's in divinity. And I ended up, not only being settled in congregations, but I also joined the the denominational leadership for ministers. And that's where I got a lot more board orientation and facilitation training.

So I, just recently stepped down from being a regional would go and meet with congregational leadership and help them sort out whatever difficult decision they were making and, or help them navigate personnel issues, you know, so so that kind of thing. I moved to Middleborough in 2012, so I am also not a townie. I just was a townie in a really small town, smaller than Midborough. And I I found a great home in this town and a home at the Unitarian Universalist Church. They are small and mighty and generous and musical and, you know, but they're they've got a real presence in town, and I just really enjoyed that.

I did retire in 2022, and and then I started volunteering. So, I'm now on the YMCA board of governors for Hillsborough. I was organizing or helping to, run the Middleborough Area Assistance Coalition, shortening NAC. And that was a community of practice for about 39 or 40 agencies that were serving people who really had extra needs or underserved communities in, Middleborough and Carver and Rochester and, you know, about four or five towns around us. And that is where I learned the most about, the needs of the community and who was doing great things, who might need and assist doing great things.

And, that's also where I became acquainted with, you know, specialists like Ruby Payne who talks about the impact of, limited language, not just literacy, but language and how that has an effect on kids for the rest of their lives. You know, the difference between kids who know 10,000,000 words and kids who know 40,000,000 words means being the

the I So I think

equity needs of the kids in our community and the adults in our communities. And, I really love this library. My kids love this library. And I confess I do a lot of my reading on Libby right now with the sales network. But, when I first came to town, this was really just a wonderful place to be. So I believe in what this community is doing. I believe in what its priorities are. And I think I think there's a lot of good and a lot that's going on that's good. I know there have been struggles, and, I wanna help. And

but

like I said, eve even if you don't choose me,

boy oh boy. We've got a great purpose. So thank you, mom. Thank you. Okay.

Before we deliberate, do any of you have questions that you wanna ask the board? I'm the senior member, the process would be really, it's slightly different in that you know should I elect to renew, we just send a similar letter to select board. Hey. Bob and Jean and Bill are all up for re you know, their their term expires June 30, and they'd all like to be redominated or re re reappointed. So that same thing goes to the select board.

I'm not gonna answer for the select board, but, you know, it would be rare for them to reject anybody only because then they'd have to go out and find somebody themselves. Mhmm. So so it's always worked that way. So, yes, I've I've been reappointed ten ten times. Nine nine times.

Lot. And this and so the other the only other thing I want you to be aware of is and I may have touched on it when I acknowledge your your interest. The process from here would be, me sending a letter to the board. The board voting with firm assuming it's an affirmative vote, you would be notified to go to the town hall and you'd have to be sworn in. It's not a huge thing.

Mhmm. And the the town does require an online ethics course course and a couple of other little things like that just so that you're aware of how it progresses. And once you are in the ranks as a trustee, there's all kinds of backup that's available. The mass court of the library commissioners being one of the biggest ones. And, you know, so it's not like you're you're floundering or anything like that.

And you have fun. With that said, I'm not even sure how to go about this. I do have a question for you, Sarah. Are you currently on the whiteboard? Yes. And were you on it? How long?

Since before Sue stepped down as you're playing.

I I I would feel uncomfortable voting or discussing Sarah because my wife was the director of of the Middle World. Why? I don't think it applies anymore, but I'm not take any chances. So I'm gonna recuse myself, I think, from the the entire conversation. I don't know if I can still run it, though. I'm gonna say no.

I don't think if you accuse yourself, don't run it.

Yeah. I'm gonna just sit here and ask somebody to help me out by, conducting a vote. I know that was nasty of me, but I do feel very Just uncomfortable about that.

Throw us all to the wolves there, Jim. It's fine. I

mean, Sherry is the next senior.

So Oh, god. I I don't I'm not really sure how to run this except, I guess, open up to nominations. If you have a nomination for someone you would like to see as a trustee, now

would be

your time to make a motion. Discussion and

second in discussion. I would just like to clarify, we are talking specifically about the vacancy created by Ellie's resignation. Correct. Yes. We are not discussing any potential vacancies in June? No. We're at

that point. We're talking Ellie.

Ellie. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Thank you.

I'll entertain motions for a nomination for trustee.

Anyone.

I know it's a nice problem to have, but

I it's a fabulous problem to have because all four of you are amazing. So it's amazing. Both of them

are looking show and the shatters.

This is the first time I've been since I've sat on the board, we've had four people where I'm like, any of you would be a great. Yeah. So yeah.

We don't usually get that.

No. We don't. So this is great.

But I'm not here. I'm running this

meeting. So folks make

a motion.

You know, I I

think everybody was so impressive, and and thank you all for for coming tonight and and sharing some of your story with us. And, I think you'd all make terrific candidates. But I'll I'll nominate, Marla Snyder for for her position.

Do you have a second?

I will second that nomination. Okay. I would echo okay. Are we having discussion now? On On Lara's I would echo John's thank you for everyone for making themselves forward. I think everyone is an amazing candidate. However, as this vacant the vacancy that we're filling is Ellie's who has such a breadth of experience with the library and the programs and via her book club here. I think that having someone who is an active volunteer in the bookseller is a nice addition to our board to compliment that piece that we have lost from her resignation.

Okay. I'll open it up to any other nominations for trustee. Anyone else have a nomination? I'm gonna do three calls, so second call for nominations for trustee.

I could nominate all four

of you.

I I know. I'm with you on this

one. I'm

I'm honestly, I'm

with you on this one, like anyone. Since I'm sort of running it, also not running it, I'm gonna I I will do a nomination for oh, no. I'm actually I don't know. I I had I had someone, and now I'm like, no. All four

are great, so I'm

not sure.

Anyone else? That's a second call for nominations. Third call for nominations. Okay. Alright. So we are on one nomination for Marla Snyder.

Am I

pronouncing it correctly? As trustee for the Middleborough board of library Middleborough Library board of trustees. And vote. All in favor?

Aye. Aye. Aye. I'm abstaining.

I don't know if I have to abstain if I've already abstained. I just

Anyone opposed?

We should get that

vote. Any opposed? Congratulations, Marlon. And you're back, Jim. Please take that back. I

apologize. I I didn't even think of that earlier.

So some people are always up. Like, it's a you know, not rotating. It's not the right word, but every June for reappointment. So if there are other people that maybe in this round don't wanna be reappointed, I I would hope that or the rest of you would reply again. Absolutely. Yes.

Are nine Absolutely. There are nine trustees on a three year Stattering. Road staggering basis. So three will expire this coming June. Three will expire next June. Not the same three. But I I think if nothing else, we can we'll have your name if you if we don't

We'll be calling on all

of you again. So,

with that said, you're welcome to stay if you'd like. Absolutely. We do have some other, business to attend to, and if not, you're free to go and thank you very much.

So the process for Marla is you will send her name over to the select board?

Yeah. Can I do that even though I've recused myself because I am the chair?

So Right.

You you're the ones who who did it. Right. And I can probably do that before I leave tonight.

Randy has a letter that like a template. Okay. But I think I just needed the address. He he's had the address of people in there in the past, and I didn't know. All the addresses of the candidates. That's usually put in the letter.

At least

it was, like, a past Street address. Or or the email address? Street address.

Street address.

Of all.

Of the appointee. So I didn't have all of them to make up pre I was gonna make them all

up in case. And then pick

the person.

Do we have your street address

and all that? That's her job. I don't

I'm not sure if we have it but we'll figure that out.

It's there on the top of our letter. Okay,

next item on the agenda is under new business. I wasn't sure whether to put this under new business or corresponds but I made the decision to put it as new business because I'm not sure if you're allowed to discuss correspondence and hold on it. And both of these items, four one and four two, are going to require action by the board. Alright. 41.

41 is an email that I received from the friends indicating that they had reviewed, well you can read it but I'll go over it quick, that they reviewed our statement that we we issued as board trustees and they wanted further some documentation relative to, how we we came out with that. What I did not know is the records request does not have to be in the portal. Also, an email does suffice as a records request. So I did I was not going to reply right away. I was gonna wait till this meeting to reply.

And I did end up replying. I thought I had some luck with them by here. But in any event, This might well, I'm just I'm just trying to make sure I got the two them correct. Okay. The first one was on that we all research done to support the statement that our nonprofit restated its articles of organization to eliminate its primary purpose.

You will the the documentation number one, I don't think they they they were talking about that the definition of the internal revenue service is their generic their generic generic, yeah, primary purpose. So they're they're listing that. It's it's kinda like a cut and paste type of thing that the the IRS talks about. My statement was that wasn't our intent nor do we say that. We were talking about the restated articles of organization organization that that changed changed, I believe it was sections two, three, and four, three, four, and five, I'm not sure exactly, but one of which was the, you know, going from having membership to not having membership.

So that was really the the crux of it. My reply to the friends was just that, you know, we and I what I did is I referred to our our posting on the Internet or on the website and pointed out that the the the three documents are or there's multiple documents attached to that or or there's there's there's there's just click to the to the website to to bring up the forms and whatnot. And said that, you know, this is basically the documents that we were using to to support the the decision. The other one was our claim that the trademark was, you know, they're trying to we are telling them they're trying to legally claim the institute for their own. And I explained that in this in this sense, sense, institute is a much more generic term, and it includes everything.

It's if you were not insinuating that you're trying to take over physical building because they do say that. You know, you know, does not provide us with the right to claim property at 102 North Main Street. No. No. That's not what we were saying. We we can't do that. I mean, by by law, we are required to have this building under our control. So in any event, I did in fact send a reply to this and I apologize. I thought I had it, you know, at this point. I'm sorry it is there I'm sorry thank you.

This again the pages are longer This is in regard to four one. I, I sent this is the the reply. Sorry for the delay in responding. I was trying to find the information. I don't know. This is on for two hours. Really jumping. Okay. We'll go back

to that.

So

I I apologize. I don't have it. I I also not heard back from the friends whether or not they have accepted it or rejected it. The one thing that I would like to do at this point. Their email and my reply actually, my reply is sending them a link to a a site site that they're asking us to remove in article or in item four two.

If in fact, we do agree to eliminate that from our website, then I'm gonna have to revise my reply to the friends on item four one and I would do that by simply sending the actual link to the documents because once once that, call it, master document is deleted, if it's deleted, they would not have access to it, and that I don't think would be very nice. So I will do that. Again, I'm gonna ask for an actual motion on that so that I can do it, if necessary, to to resend my reply.

So to clarify, clarify, Jim, you're looking for a motion to remove or not remove

our No. That will that will come in

I'm sorry. I'm I'm just trying

to to. Okay. Let me let me yeah. Because I know I screamed before.

It was kind

of very

There was

a a lot going on there. Very I wanna try to understand. Yeah. Well, if

this is a public records request, I mean, it it's I don't know why there's so much detail and explanation in it. Mhmm. Public records request, the when we respond to that, we're only required to provide any records. We're not required to create records. We're not required to resubmit explanations.

I don't know why they have I don't I don't know. So when I read this, though, and kinda weed through all of it, it seems like it's just they want any documentation that supported, you know, the statement that we put out. I don't know why they're asking us for that about why they're questioning our help to just determine whether their organizations that they hired have aired in any way. That's been odd, but so I would just I would just take that as, you know, what document what doc public documents did we rely on in crafting the statement that we put out. Right. That's why we think about it.

And they they are linked at the bottom of our statement.

Yeah. That's their filings on the secretary of state's office.

Yeah. So you may website. Yeah. We may wanna just send a request request to say, is this what you're looking for? Is this your request?

Okay. I mean but I mean, I I did make a I did send something. So my only my only issue now is what I sent might become obsolete when we vote on vote on the actual open meeting law complaint because that's a different subject altogether. The open meeting law, and I and I can't I don't wanna jump to that until we've done with this. So you have two you have two issues.

There there you have an inform a a public records request looking for what documents we had to to support. They've changed their way of doing business. Mhmm. I mean, that that that may be oversimplifying the request, but that's basically what they're saying. That would be in the form of the fact that the original articles there's an amendment to the articles, and then there's a restatement to the articles. Well, to me, it's pretty clear that you've got three iterations of that document, so there had to be some sort of change.

But Again, we there's no explanation necessary. Documents. Here here's And I think whatever documents we I mean, we had a whole meeting where attorney Corvo was here about it. It's saying documents that we used in that meeting and then whatever documents were linked to the statement. I don't think there were any unless anybody else has.

That's that's kinda what I'm getting at. What I sent was a link that could become obsolete. So if

The link to what we have posted on the website. Is that

what you're talking about? If we remove that. Okay. If we remove our statement as we've requested, then they will not have the ability to click on the link that I gave them to get to the documents. My solution to that would be if we do pull that document off of our website, that I can resend the reply with just the actual document.

With the With link. With the links. Right.

The actual document. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's all I'm saying. A conditional Correct. A conditional motion. Correct. If if we don't pull it, then there is no issue. But I if we do issue it, then I wanna be able to reply to it.

I mean, you could table four

one until we talk about it and vote on four two.

And then bring it back in the same meeting. I'll speak about the proprietive of the board, I suppose.

Or we can just vote to send the actual documents instead of a link. I have to supplement your email.

Yeah. Whatever. That that that might be a

Is that way there just

Download the documents and attach them to an email? Is that what you're thinking? Yeah. Just the PDF. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Is this in the portal now? The the records portal?

No. That was that was the other thank you. That was the other thing. I believe we can send it to the town and have it publicly recorded so that it's a public document. Okay.

Makes sense in case someone

else has

similar request.

I think that's fair. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. So that would be that would be the second piece. Then I suppose I could have done that anyways. So do do we have a motion? If we have a double motion, that would be great.

I move that we, authorize Jim to reply to the records request with sending the actual documents as attachments to the request and then take the records request and the supporting material and send it to the town for inclusion in the portal.

The same documents that are currently linked on our website.

That are the same documents that are currently linked on our website so they have a permanent help. Yes. So

I was gonna say I'll take that as a motion in a second.

That's a

long motion.

Sorry. Just wanna make sure I understood. Yeah.

We have a motion that's made and seconded. Before we vote, do you have any questions on what we're of what we're doing?

No. I

have. Or or all good for me. Okay. Alright. Hearing hearing is there any discussion on the board? Hearing none. All those in favor?

Aye. I'm

an aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Four two. Four two, and it will be page 30.

And this is very confusing because my Gmail system likes to stack emails, and sometimes it gets a little confusing. What I initially replied to again was an email that was sent to me on Saturday, March 21. And and I suppose I could read or at least para I don't know if I'm gonna paraphrase. It is my understanding that all committees and boards have recently been sent information which focuses on the concept of deliberation. Attorney Corbeau's opinion was which was sent to select board Mark Germain pertains to the fact that the use of email from one board member to a form of the board is considered a deliberation.

I'm not gonna read all of this because you've had it in front of you, you have it in front of you. She goes on and at the January 29 meeting, the board vote and they posted agenda item, voted to charge charge myself and another trustee to write a reply. And in discussion, trustees were directed to submit what each thought would go into the reply, which you all did. Not all of them. I think realistically, I think I only got three replies.

At the March 9 meeting, the board of trustees, there was an item listed three one impossible vote on trustee response to Friends Act. The trustees had a copy of the final version, the trustees then proceeded to discuss the timeliness of the document and decided to publish the response, basically based on Diane's thoughts that it was owed to the former director. In any event, my my understanding or of of that task was no different was was not a violation of an open meeting law because it is not one trustee sending out a a this is my opinion to all the rest of the trustees. In it's at least in my email going back and forth, there was never a situation where one trustee did a reply all. Know either way, the only time and if if this is a violation then I my fault a 100%.

For some reason, I felt compelled to send it to attorney Corvo for approval. I did that on February 11. At the same time, I sent it to the board. Evidently, from what I'm told, that might be a violation of open meeting. Even though there was no further discussion back and forth via email that that might contemplate.

The only one who can really determine that is the attorney general. I I I think, you know, it it's their their opinion that we did violate. It's my opinion that we did I don't believe we did. If we did, again, call it you know, I can't blame ignorance of the law because that's just doesn't happen, but I I had no idea. So my my reply to this email was late.

At the very bottom of her original email, which is on page 33. Obviously, there are time constraints associated with our filing with the attorney general should that be required. So I'm hoping that you will be able to provide your feelings on this issue by Wednesday. That's where I didn't know that this is a public records request or anything like that. But I did in fact reply. And that reply, please.

On the

back of 31.

Okay. Okay. I did reply on March 26, and basically, I agreed. I said, you're correct. On the March 29 meeting or the January 29 meeting, I was I was charged along with another trustee to to to this reply.

I did begin by saying I'm not sure what you're talking about as far as the the the attorney Corbeau ruling about open meeting law violations and email correspondence. I specifically said, I I I don't recall ever seeing it. I don't believe we've ever seen it. Can you can you tell me more? I think your email gives me a general idea of what was sent.

I am hoping that I am looping in trustee Sherry as she was the other trustee's task with us. You're correct. Our January 29 meeting was char I was charged along with another trustee to compose a response to your open letter. At no time did any one trustee send an email to anyone other than myself and trustee, Harley Neely. The two of us did what the board asked of us.

We crafted a reply. There was no requirement to seek board approve approval of the re of the response. I I personally, now take full blame, was under the impression basically had that document approved before we even left the room that night back in January. January. There was no no discussion about let's bring it back for the next meeting.

What what transpired though was my error in sending it to to attorney Corvo. I don't know this, but I think had we elected to just post it, then we wouldn't be having this conversation now because it would have been absolutely I mean, we did exactly what we were told. So it's that email that I sent to everybody that is a potential question. So that's what we need to address. She's talking talking about about a a thirty thirty day day requirement.

Requirement. So So she's she's she's she's using the March 9 date as the thirty day clock, which is by statute. You have thirty days if you don't if you don't respond. You know, I suppose you could argue that, well, you know, the the if there was a breach of the of the open meeting law, it would have been when it was sent, February 11. However, I think there's also arguments that if the general public wouldn't be aware of it until a later date, then that later date prevails.

So when we started talking about it on the ninth, again, to the friends' state of thinking is that starts the thirty day clock. So we had on and on April 9 or actually, she she she did file it before that. But in her in her open and and I apologize for the open meeting law form itself. See, because when I opened it, this is what it looked like. Yeah.

I know if the camera can pick that up. But as you can see, it's it's font's so big. It's all cut off. So I I made a request to the requestor. If you could, let me you know, can you send me

a better cop?

Actually, I went to the state first. And I said, you know, I've got this document. I can't read it. Is there some way we can fix fix your system? I I was talking to the attorney general's office, and they said, no. You have to go back to the requester, which I did. I went back, to the friends, and I did in that request say, can you send me a better copy? Can we have an extension? Because, you know, here it is 5 later and I still can't open the thing. And I have no idea what you're talking about in Corning Gorbos letters that was supposedly sent to all department heads.

I went to the town, I went to the town manager or the interim town manager and at that point I also went to, Mark who's still the select board chair and I said hey can you send me a copy of this and let me know who it went to because my concern was it was sent to an an email list that had Randy's name in it instead of Chris's name. I've asked them to verify the the the interim. Interim. Joe. Joe.

It did not say when it was sent or who it was sent to. So again, I'm back to square one. It's kinda hard to apply this document without all of that. But I I I I think that's at this point irrelevant. We have we have been notified.

So we need to do something with this open meeting law complaint. If in fact we don't get an extension from the friends, this would be due in I think it's the twenty third. You know, they have it the the the the form is dated 04/02, but it was sent to me on 04/03 via email. If that's the case, I'm not sure when on fourthree it was sent like if it was sent after business hours, but let's assume it was sent within business hours. The twentieth is a holiday, so, like, you have fourteen days.

So it'd be one, two no. I don't wanna do that. I might just count one, two, 34, 567891011121314. It'll be due on Friday the twenty fourth. Pleasure the board.

I don't think I don't think we have a choice not to respond.

No. I was

just gonna say, so my understanding in terms of policy is that all open meeting law complaints go to KP Law. Is that no longer the policy?

I sent it immediately to KP Law and I was told I could not send it to KP Law anymore. Okay. So that that thank you for that reminder. I I sent the original one that I couldn't open Mhmm. To KP Law virtually immediately.

I was actually working with KP Law. I got an initial reply from the interim town manager that basically was a reply to Mr. Hey, I'm working on this with Jim. Do I have permission to go forward? His reply was give Jim what he needs.

And the next day I got a phone call saying I I have to renege because, you know, the the price the amount of money being spent on legal just exploded. So while I did it in good faith as I thought was to my legal counsel, I've since been told we do not have that evidence.

So the way

I understand the deliberations with the emails for an for open meeting law is that a member of the public body cannot send out anything to the entire or to a quorum if it's something if it's, like, their opinion on anything or and if it's going to be discussed and voted on in

the and possibly voted on in

the future. So if, like, Chris had sent out something, that's not an open meat law violation. She's not a member of the body. Correct. And I think that because in January, we authorized authorized the chair to come up with a response or the chair and chairing to come up with a response that didn't need to come back to us. I don't think that it was violated by you sending it to us. But then because it maybe went on the meeting in March, depending on what what it could be voted on, I guess. We had already voted to publish it The in January. Yeah.

The meeting sorry. The meeting in March, March, in no way, shape, or form was to approve the document. Mhmm. The meeting in March was and, again, I raised the question, did we miss our window of opportunity? And should we make the decision not to to postpone?

So, again, I'm gonna go back to the fact I believe that I acted in good faith. I I considered the document approved. And by sending it to you, my my reason for sending it to you was to let you know that, hey, I'm not ignoring the wishes of the board. Sherry and I did what we were asked. Here's the document. Mhmm. So I I I don't know if that becomes the defense, but if that that's the case, do we still need to send all of these did they have listed six things that they would like us to do to to That's not

like public records request, but

Yeah. It's But, again, the public records request can be in any form, and this is Well, but it's

some of it's not Yeah. Related to us, like, correspondence to him from a no. I'm sorry. The correspondence between Joe Perkins and Mark Germain and or Teresa Farley, that really doesn't have anything to do with us. We don't control what they send or receive. Like, that's that's on them or the town clerk or whoever handles that. That's not us. Right? I mean, for us, if you look at what they're asking for and what actions are you expecting us to take, honestly, the only thing I see is number one. Like, we can provide the emails, Jim, you and I exchanged in drafting and writing that response.

If you received an email I know I received one email from one trustee with some input before we started drafting. It was sort of thoughts of what could go into it, and I think you received one or two others. Correct. Right. I didn't see those. I just heard. So I we could provide those. Outside of that, don't think there's anything else here that we need to provide. Like, this isn't us.

I could be wrong.

Right. One one yeah. I agree that I went through my stuff. Not meaning to throw anybody around, but I think I got I got one from Jan and one from Tom. I had my own thoughts. You had your

own thoughts. Mhmm.

So, yeah, I'm not sure why they want anything from Randy.

Oh, that's awesome. Randy was not involved at

all in any

involved at all. No. It's got absolutely nothing to do, with with the alleged violation. And I would have a real difficult time because the only and I let me put it on record. The only one that I have of me sending an email to Randy after he left was to let him know that BuzzFeed.

And if that's a violation because I think I did also include all of you. Yes. Mhmm. But again, I don't think we deliberated that. No. So so I I agree, I have no idea what the staff interaction with him might have been, but I would assume is, hey. How's the new job going? Or something along those lines. I don't think it had anything to do with the reply.

Well, I think number two, that provide a copy of all correspondence to inform Randy Gagne from January to March to members of the board or to the library staff. That's that's a a lot of email. Like It's a huge That he could be emailing someone about a a medical leave or upcoming PTO or something. Do we include those? He was when did he leave? What? I can't remember when. Twenty twenty second Oh. Twenty first. March.

March. F changing.

Was it changing? Oh my gosh. Of changing. Have lost time. Okay. Yeah. So so there's nothing. Right?

Yeah. Don't think we need to apply or or provide anything that has attorney Corbeau's name on it. Again, everything whether or not he was our retained lawyer at the time, I thought he was. So Yeah. I I would be hard pressed.

The correspondence to and from internal town manager for me, and I I may need to because I haven't finished going through all of my ins and outs, especially I wasn't really looking for anything from Jim Perkins. I can tell you, I got zero from Mark. And I don't I did send to Mark the request for, you know, when attorney Corbeau sent the document. He supposedly, it went to Mark as the select board chair and Jay McGrail as the then town manager. Somewhere along the line, it was supposed to have gone to all the department heads.

That's the piece that I'm still missing. And again, as I explained earlier, I think it might be the fact that they sent it to a bad email list.

It wasn't updated. Sort of changes. Right? Yeah. Whoever sent it,

I don't know if it would have gone back to them saying, hey. This one didn't go through. I would hope it did, but evidently, it didn't. But in any event, that's the only correspondence I've had relative to that and my correspondence with Joe Perkins relative to sending it to Corbo contained stuff that went to Corbo. So again, I think that's gonna be detected by the attorney privilege.

Removal of the Bolt publication. And six, a public statement that Bolt has violated. I'd like to approach that in a slightly different manner. And and this is where I'm probably gonna get some pushback, but that's why you're here. I don't want the public to perceive us as hiding behind closed doors.

I don't want them to, you know, however however this ends up being twisted or shown or presented. I don't want the public to think that this board is acting unethically. I would like to remove it pending pending formal notification that we have in fact violated. And on number six, I will make a public statement. I'll do it right now because I'm on that this board may have violated the Humidity Law, but we did act in I acted in what I believe to be full compliance.

And it wasn't until certain things were pointed out to me and well after the the event that we could have been potentially in violation. So I I think where I'm really looking for help or or is to to remove it. And I think we can remove it based on the fact we reserve the right to put it back. Should they should they aging come back with a a favorable pain you know, in our favor. I don't know. That that I

need water.

I think I might go the other way and suggest we leave it up until the agent comes back with my opinion.

So if if we vote or acknowledge that we may have violated the women's law on March 9 because I think it would have been March 9. I don't think Yeah.

They have no no no knowledge of what happened between

the No. But, I mean, you know, when you sent it out in February to everybody, I don't think it was a violation then because it wasn't intended to come back in front of us for anything. Right. So that mean, it's kind of a weird thing,

I guess,

because I

don't know

how you fix that if if you decide later on. Really, the that we took didn't change anything. It wasn't a vote to rescind the prior vote. But, certainly, if we did anything wrong, I I would wanna confront it and Okay. Say how we're gonna do better next time. But I I don't know that so I think that if we agree that, you know, maybe we violated it and here's what we're gonna do in the future, I don't unless they disagree, unless the friends disagree with that response, response, it doesn't go to the attorney general.

It goes to the attorney general because I have to send it to him. Okay.

When And so it didn't I thought it came to the board first, and then if they're not satisfied with the response, they appeal it. Is that not right?

Maybe I'm misremembering. Okay.

Yeah. At the same time, the body must send to the attorney general a copy of the complaint and a copy of the response. Mhmm. That's page 39.

Yeah.

Kind of below the middle. So they're both under instructions instructions for for public public law. Money. So Yeah. I

Kind suppose that that I got Yeah. So The the attorney general already has a copy of

the I don't think they do.

Because they do.

Well, but this I says sent it to them. Oh, well

I sent it to

them with

the with the

This says that they that if if there's somebody filing a complaint, they have to file it within thirty days of the alleged violation with the public body and the clerk,

I think. Mhmm. That's something that I have not been able to verify. I tried that today.

And then, you know, we are supposed to do a response within fourteen business days. And then once we've responded, if they're not satisfied with the response, they can file a copy of the complaint, with the attorney general. Isn't that what this says? So I Correct. I mean, I guess

you sent it. I Well, I sent it I don't think they were anything happened.

I sent it because of this. Because of the because I couldn't read it. I sent it to Sherry. Just Sherry. Yeah. Just me. And she she did the same thing. It took a of finagling to to get it to open. And truth be told, I finally said, well, send it to a different server. And I sent it to a different email address, and I was able to. Mhmm. I clicked on it. The print was Exactly.

It was

like I don't think

the attorney general's office reviews complaints until the public body has filed a response Has responded to it.

But but, again, they'll have it

on record.

Right. So guess I my point, though, is if we acknowledge that we may have violated the opening law in here, the remedial steps we're gonna take. So maybe we're gonna make sure in the future that, you know, any any anything from a member that goes to everybody else is also made public at the time that it's sent to the body, you know, all members of the body. And if that's sufficient to address it and the friends believe that that's sufficient to address it, they don't take it up. So there's the attorney general's not gonna review anything, I don't think. You know what I mean?

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Unless unless I'm wrong. I'll let everyone think I'm wrong. But so

it's a sticky wicket, but we gotta figure it out.

Right. So I think my what I think we should do is say, we believe we may have violated it on March 9. The intent was not to violate it when you sent it out earlier because it wasn't intended to come back for for the us to review because we had already authorized you to send you know, to post it to draft it and post it without coming back for approval. And that in the future, we'll we'll make sure that anything that goes from one of the members to the rest of us that may even possibly be voted on in the future will be, know, put up for the public as well.

What if it goes through the director?

The director is not subject to open meeting law with that.

So But I'm sorry. Director could send it out. Right. So if if we'd had if if if we had had Chris gather all this information and then send out the documents, then it wouldn't have been an

issue. Right.

So our that's my possible misstep was that

you sent it as opposed to, say, Chris Correct. Or our new director. That was our possible misstep. Okay.

I think our boards have, you know, clerks that aren't also members.

And so, you know, it's

a little it's a little odd on our board. So that's why it's not usually a problem, don't think, because the clerk is usually the one sending out all the materials and the director is usually the one sending materials to the

meeting in the most part.

K. So what's the price of the board? I don't I don't even would you do the thing that you asked you to? Do you make the reply? Yep.

Do you do you want to make a motion with specific language in it, or do you just wanna authorize me to reply?

Well, that's the pleasure of the board. I'm not gonna make the motion.

I'll make a motion that authorizes Diane Stewart to write a reply to this open meeting of consent based on the discussion we just had, yes, in open meeting. Okay.

Does it need to be preapproved by well, that that was a motion.

So That was my that was I there may be more, but that's where I'm going right now.

That was a motion. Was there a second? I'll second that. Okay. So the motion was just to have Diane do the reply.

I'm sorry. When did you We

didn't say that's a problem, we didn't, we didn't, we didn't get into all that detail, so we may need to amend the,

Do we need a date on that, reply by?

Well, gonna need a date, do we need to, we don't have, without another meeting we don't have an opportunity to have it come back to the board.

Okay, well maybe we could

just have a short meeting.

Yeah, we could do a zoom time. Yeah, yeah.

It has out of our hands by the twenty fourth.

Today is what does that mean? Yes.

Let me redo that just to make sure. I I still have to believe I can use the date of of April 3 since it was not received until the my email is date stamped April 3. Mhmm.

I think it's April 23 is the oh, because you said there's a holiday though. Yeah.

The twentieth is a holiday, so it would have to be done by business end of business on the twenty fourth. I would rather have it well before that. Is that a time constraint for you?

No. I'm thinking maybe we should have a meeting

the twenty first or something.

Probably.

I could do the twenty second, but it would have be at seven.

A meeting to review and discuss or just

To review and discuss it. Just any changes on that? Yeah.

Is everybody available for the twenty first?

Yes. Mhmm.

Yes.

Hopefully, I

am. I don't see anything in this calendar, but okay. So do you wanna withdraw your motion and start over, or do you wanna

I'll amend it to responding by April 23, we said. Mhmm. And having a meeting between now and then to review and discuss the response. And

we we can put on a date later. Okay. Yeah. So the motions were made. Is there a second to that motion? I'll second. Oh, no. That was an amendment. Yeah.

That was an amendment to the first motion. So I'm sorry. Yes. So we need second on that. We need to second the amendment. Second. I'll second it. Okay.

Let's draw

this rule. Speaking on just the amendment which added the date and a few other details. Any further discussion? I'm gonna vote on the amendment first. All those in favor?

Aye. Aye.

Any opposed? Any abstentions? Now let's go to the motion. As amended. We need to have Diane reply by the twenty third in another meeting in between. That's any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Okay. Meeting. From the consensus of the board, a Zoom call on the twenty third twenty first? Twenty first.

Mhmm. To Tuesday, the twenty first. I seem to have a consensus. Mhmm. Time, regular, six, five, two in the morning. Okay. Six is good. Six.

Six. I don't do you need me to set that up? Listen.

Okay. So we're gonna try to do that. 42126 at six. Is that a motion?

It It was included in the amended motion that we

would meet. We would determine it, yeah, but let's let's make that a motion so we can make it official.

But I think I don't think we need the date of the next meeting in

the motion. No. No. Okay. So we

just we just set

it up. In case you

go home and decide that that's not the

right date for you to pay my payment. Jim says that does not have it

from my calendar. Right. Right. Okay. There any I hope you're just like me. Okay. I guess the only other thing is a motion to adjourn. Okay. Do you are you do you think that would

be approved? Would think beginning of the twenty first? Or

I don't think so because we'll I don't think this will be next week.

Yeah. That's a Monday holiday. Yeah. You'll Friday night.

Right? But it is still a

public meeting.

It's still yes.

Yeah. So you would be able to join the Zoom. You just wouldn't be able to

vote. Right. And and we would be able to, I suppose, ask your opinion. You would have a vote. But I don't think we would wanna do that, though, just to keep everything as clean as we can.

Okay. Do I have a motion to adjourn?

So moved.

Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Thank you very much.