Board of Library Trustees - Grafton Public Library - Regular Meeting

[Music] 7:01. I call the meeting to order at 7:01 p.m. So, we're good. We're good. All right. Uh, welcome everyone to the July edition of our our monthly board meeting for the library trustees. Um, hope everyone is enjoying their summer. Um, we have an extremely busy and full agenda. Um, so I'm going to try to certainly try to hit some of the the high priority items or make sure that we hit all the high priority items if there's any other items that individuals want to make sure that we get to tonight. Um, obviously speak up. Um, otherwise I guess we'll just start going on the agenda. Um oh we do have so we are um triing our hybrid um so we have a zoom meeting so welcome to everyone who's attending uh virtually I think everyone is attending as listen only so

yes right all right so sounds good so if there's no other comments the first thing we need to do is annual reorganization of the board um obviously with our uh the town elections in May um it's time for us to reorganize the board and we've been without a vice chair here for a couple months. Um, so I think at this point we will open the floor to nominations if anyone's interested in either the chair or vice chair position. Um, I would like to nominate Doug Bowman for the chair of the board if you will accept.

Uh, okay. Um, do I accept it first or do you Well, I I guess you you certainly could. I know that that uh historically or traditionally committee assignments uh as far as chair and vice chair go from one approximately election or fiscal year to the next, but they can go for a shorter period of time and we can always reorganize at any time if if there's a commitment made by anyone that they may not want to go the entire year, but they're willing to at least start off. Yep. So

yeah, certainly for myself it might be challenging to do the full year. Um but I don't know if I h can know the time commitment right now. So I think I can commit kind of indefinitely for now. Okay, great. So yeah, I would accept your nomination. Anything else? I guess we just start with the chair or do we go through? Well, I think if we ask for any other nominations for for chair. Yep. Are there any other nominations for the chair? All right. Hearing none, I guess we vote on the chair. Um, so all in favor of nominating myself as the chair. I

I um all opposed. All right. So I will continue as the chair. Um and then next would be nominations for vice chair. Um, I'll nominate uh Rachel Toscus for uh vice chair. Can I ask like what the time commitment is of a vice chair? Um, well, I think you need a second first. Yeah, we would I think we need a second first. A second. Second. Okay. All right. Nomination made and seconded. Any discussion? Any discussion?

Can I ask what the time commitment is of the vice chair? Uh it's a that's probably a tough question to answer. Um because it does vary monthto monthth and over the year. Um I will say it's probably going to be a busy time for the next four or five months just because we're hiring uh interim and permanent library director. And so there's going to be all the hiring process which you've obviously already on that committee. Um and then there's going to be the onboarding of the library director. Um kind of the um setting the goals, stuff like that. I mean that's going to be something that the whole committee is going to be doing but obviously the vice chair will have some impact on that.

I in my experience uh as chair provided I maintained my ability to you know to attend all the meetings and such um certainly the chair and the vice chair would collaborate. However, in the absence of some unforeseen illness or travel uh work commitment, the vice chair is often times um from a time commitment either wouldn't typically find themselves running the meetings or taking a large role in creating the agenda. Um those are the two biggest things that like the chair does and the vice chair would um fill in in theirstead. But um again, as Doug said, I think we're all going to be busy. Um so the vice chair wouldn't I see uh be taking any undue commitment more than the rest of us.

Yeah. No, that's all I was double checking. So that's fair. I can except for maybe leading the meeting if I can't make it. Yeah. Yeah. You got it. So like about five hours a week. Yeah. Yeah. That's about what we're doing now. So it's good. All right. So we have um one nomination on the floor. Anybody else want to nominate a vice chair? Actually, I don't know. Did I hear an you did? Okay. Thank you. Okay. So, hearing none. Um all in favor of um having um Rachel, vice chair. I I opposed. I declare that motion carried.

Congratulations. Congratulations both of you and thank thank you for for leading the board for another year or however long you said indefinitely. I heard him say that so I didn't mean indefinitely. Yes. So he meant long. He meant longer. Yes. Thank you Rachel.

Yeah I know. Thank you Rachel. Um great. Okay. So that was easier easy. Um we do have thanks to Kim for putting together um the meeting packet. Um, and in that packet is a number of different um, things uh, from the MBLC open meeting law. So, I would um, suggest that if you're not familiar with it already to certainly review all of those documents. The pocket guide is a nice I don't know 15page document that kind of goes through a lot of the responsibilities. Yeah, that was probably one of the most helpful things and I I I advocated for that when they when they offered it um to boards because um especially for somebody who doesn't interact with libraries a lot um coming into this job it's like well what's the job you know um and what are my responsibilities versus staff responsibilities versus um you know what the friends do right and where's their overlap and um because there's very clear boundaries on what we can and can't do um we can't fund raise, you know, things like that. That's why we have the friends do that and and the staff can't fund raise.

So, there's a lot. So, I' I'd um expect new new trustes to take a look at it and even people have been on the board for a while, there's probably something new. The last time I looked at it was 2018 and this is a 2025 version. So, no, good point. That's so it's been updated. Yep. Yep. Um certainly if there's any questions on any of the stuff that you read um there's a lot of resources on NBLC and obviously you can reach out to other of the board members.

Yeah. Uh and I will say that some of these documents will also tell you how to sign up for the trustee list serves so that you can um communicate with other people and kind of um see what other towns are doing and ask your questions and answer questions in return. So, I find that as a valuable resource because oftentimes we're like, well, uh, can we use state aid money to throw a party for the library, right? That was a big one. And so, I I I reached out and a lot of towns actually build it into their their town budgets, right, to throw a party. So, the answer was no, you can't use state aid for that, right? Um, but that's the kind of resources that we can um, you know, put to bear.

And I'll mention Oh, I'm sorry. Well, just one other thing and um you know, we do function as a board and it really helpful having everybody aware of a lot of the things because if especially me as a chair, if I'm missing something, it's great that someone else can speak up and either correct it or guide the discussion. Yeah.

Roger. Uh um these four bullet points I would point out that while they're all important I just want to call attention to the the MIA code of conduct guidelines for town boards and committees is a great read and came out of um I think it's our property casualty um via our property casualty carrier because I think sometimes people think that they can just behave the way they want uh and there's the sort of online chaos and chatter and and uh Facebook groups and things that um sometimes people get caught up in uh trash talk and and other uh you know misbehavior. So that that is a good sort of reset uh uh button read if uh we ever need a reminder of how to uh conduct meetings. So

thank you for that. If there are no other comments or questions on that, we'll move on to the minutes. So, we have three sets of minutes to approve. Um, June 16th, June 21st, and June 25th. I make a motion that we approve them all together in one group as long as there's no discussion. Oh. Um, I had I would otherwise say yes, but I Okay, I'll second that. I'll second that motion. Um, motion made and seconded. Um, so, um, all those in favor of approving the minutes as a as a group, do we have a discussion first? Yeah. Any Oh, yeah. Sorry. I'm sorry. Any discussion?

Yeah. In other words, Yeah. I thought you were making um a vote on the procedural motion to take all of them together. Oh, yeah. That's actually right. We need to do that first. So, um, all those in favor of voting for the minutes as a group, I I opposed. Nay. Okay. Um, so now any discussion on the minutes? I had um just with the middle set the the the sort of oxymoron minutes non-m minutes uh of Saturday June June 21.

So they're not it's listed as a notice of attendance. So, I'm I'm in favor of um however we would want to format this to make the this document to read um as minutes, but as they technically have to be listed as minutes, but without substantively changing anything except maybe adding a line that said um what actually happened or didn't happen. In other words, this notice of attendance is not sort of listed in the way we we would normally see draft minutes. And so, um I guess first we would need to number one identify or we would want to identify whether even if we weren't together at one place at one time with a whether a quorum um attended that event and even if they did whether that we didn't conduct any deliberations. I was at that event. I was not.

I was and Aaron was. All right. So, it was just a three. And was I didn't see Chris here. I think Chris was out of town. Yeah. So, so what I if I would recommend I if anyone is um without objecting to it uh just formatting it so that it reads as as minutes and to state um a sentence that a quorum of the board of trustees was not present at this function.

I think I think that makes sense. I mean um I mean minutes need to kind of discuss what was discussed there and nothing was discussed. So um so are you you're proposing to add in a comment that said no quorum was reached and no no discussion

yes because this notice speaks of this activity or this function in the future tense. So, we want to sort of tighten it up so that um somewhere like at the bottom that states that um you know the board of library trustees discussed and you know we agreed that a quorum was not present at this function and so any so a deliberation really couldn't have occurred because a quorum wasn't present. So we don't even need to touch on that deliberation piece. So maybe one sentence just says um you know a yeah a quorum of the board was not present at this function and then uh put the header as if it's a minutes.

Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. So did you get that Tim? You got all that. Okay. Great. Thank you. Any other discussion on the minutes? Okay. So, all those in favor of approving the set of three minutes with the amendment for the spring into summer event. I I opposed. I declare the motion carried. Um, approved bills. There are three warrants. Um, warrant number 53 part one, warrant 53 part two, and warrant three.

Mr. Chair, I move that we um approve the warrants uh number 53-1 in the amount of $44,639.36, warrant number 53-2 in the amount of $4,590.17. And warrant uh FY26 warrant number three in the amount of $35,37016. Second motion made and seconded. Um, so that motion was to approve them as a group. So we first need to approve that we're approving as a group. Is that right? I guess. Yeah.

Yeah. So all those in favor of combining the three warrants into a single. Was there a second on that? Yes. Aaron. Okay. I I I. All those opposed? Nay. So I declare the motion carried. Um so next up is um any discussion on the three warrants. Any questions or discussion?

I had a disc uh I did all sorts of printing at home and I think I forgot some on my office desk. Um it had to do with the um an email chain that that spoke of the mechanics of how we arrived at this point and and budgeting and whether it poses any um issues that we are approving. Is this a prior year bill or is this well so the two how does that work? The two number 53s are FY25 and the last one is FY26.

So there were 53 weeks in this. In other words, the numbers um correspond to the number of week the number week we're in in the fiscal year. Correct. So 50. So there must have been a half half week and they considered it 53. Okay. Is my guess. All right. So, we're not running a r of any any um do stuff by approving these, are we? The 53. I don't know, Kim. Do you know if that's just because there was a half week in the fiscal year? Normally the numbers are based on the week of the fiscal year,

right? Um she had 50. She wasn't here. Eileen was not present for 52. So that's why we don't have a number 52. I see. Okay. So that's probably okay. That's probably I mean that's probably why because it's still a fiscal year 25 warrant. Yeah. And we don't want to confuse it by calling it a one. So I'll assume that everything's in form unless you know we hear after the fact otherwise. Okay. Any other discussion or questions on the three warrants? All right. Hearing none. All in favor? I I

opposed. They declare the motion carried. Thank you for that. U moving on to ongoing business. The first one is the Hback East Coast fire quote. Yes. So,

thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, Renard HVHC, they were on site Monday, July 21 and Tuesday, July 22nd to do the preventative maintenance um with the two visits remaining to complete comprehensive AC and um late summer filter change. Uh, so that happened and let's see, as far as billing goes, Renard typically bills um half the 5,500 was build at the beginning of the year for the winter maintenance and then the 5,500 for the summer. So, we will be charged 5,500 for this summer maintenance that was conducted Monday and Tuesday. we will receive a bill for that in the amount of $5,500.

And so this is something we would need to pay out of state aid. Um well or some other funding source, but um so I think the the request is to approve the payment of the second half of the annual maintenance for the HVAC for $5,500 through state aid. Can I ask a question? Are we approving now? Is it It's a forthcoming bill, right? We still haven't received the invoice. Correct. No, we have not received their invoice. Not for the second half. So, um, may I ask why why isn't this coming out of the budget?

Do we know that? I don't know that because I don't know that this I mean who's requesting that this comes out of um any other source. There's no funding source for it. No, I just basically wanted to bring it to the board's attention that it is coming up. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. So, I don't think we need to vote I would say. Yeah. If we haven't been invoiced for it, then we won't vote on it, but we would vote on it next month. Got it. Yeah. Is it going to put us into a budgetary issue? I think since it was not in the fiscal year 25 budget, we're going to have to find an alternate funding source like state aid for that. Okay, got it. Okay, so that um we'll um move that to next month. Okay. And how what was that dollar amount?

5500. Yep. Okay. Um East Coast Fire. Can I ask the same question? Is that a Is that a That's a a potential We don't have We haven't been invoiced in it, but we need to approve the work that we will then get invoiced for. We the the work was already approved at a former meeting. Okay. I just simply wanted to let everyone know that they are coming on July 28th and we'll complete that work. Oh, okay. Great. Now, that being Oh, I'm sorry.

No, go ahead. That being five days away, is is the issue for which they're coming is that presumably able to wait five days or Yes. Okay. Yeah. I knew it was a sort of a you know, a situation that needed to be addressed pretty quickly, but I didn't know if if that, you know, between now and then is was going to be problematic. Yeah. No, they're aware of it and um they're scheduled for the 28th and then American Alarm will be out to disconnect and reconnect the alarm so that they can complete their work. All right. Great. Thanks. That's great. So then at this time we don't need to vote for anything. No.

Okay. Great. Thank you, Kim. I I actually take this opportunity. There's been an incredible amount of stuff going on that Kim has been managing. So, thank you very much for all of the effort you've been doing for the last month, last week, everything. Thank you, Kim. You're welcome.

Um, okay. Um, so if there's nothing else with that, um, we'll move on to the teen room. Um, that's me. So, there's really two pieces with the teen room. Um, there is a gaming room. And so we did the um I can't remember if we announced that last month, but the capital campaign approved the funding for the replacement of the teen gaming room flooring and that's been ordered and I believe they Yeah, they've come in um they've torn up all the flooring and I don't they haven't put new stuff down yet. It's down. Oh, it is down. It's down. I put it on the punch list so you can see a picture of it. So that's great. Yes.

Um so that's really just FYI. Um that's great. Then the second piece with the teen room is the um somewhat related to the teen room is the um the water issue with the door with the water coming in. They continue to have water coming into the teen room. Um so we reached out to the town it turns out and the DPW to see if they'd come take a look at it. Turns out they had a company called Barnard Roofing come out um late last year and looked at it, gave an estimate uh and a quote for what they suggested getting repaired. That came out to be about $9,000. It included um uh some resoldering of joints. They noticed a lot of the joints weren't soldered correctly on the on the um what's that thing called? The the electronic return thing. the book drop, the book return. There's that one entryway that gets a lot of water. They've proposed to extend one of the roof gutters and put a deflector so that you don't have all this water pouring down the uh the roof and overflowing that gutter. And then they've proposed putting in a another downspout next to the teen door. Um they said that the that teen door has a very long run for the copper um gutter and it's not pitched correctly. So, a lot of the water that comes in on the left side of the gutter doesn't go downhill. It just goes over the end. So, they've proposed putting a second down spout. Um, I think it would be great to get that work approved before next month. Um, so um I would like to have the board um approve the funding up to some amount maybe up to $9,000 to have that completed by Barnard Roofing. I don't Can the chair make a motion?

I don't see why not. I think we had this discussion. I I don't see why not. I don't think we'd object. I know. I wouldn't. Okay. I'd even be willing to like entertain a motion that it's approved up to 9,000 and a little more if like inflation has bumped it up since because they probably have to recoup from December and copper's expensive. Yeah. So, it's specifically really to address that area. It's to address the two entryway doors that are on Upton Upton Street. Upton Street. Right. Right. So, it's the teen door and the staff entrance is where we get all that water issue. Okay. So, should we do it up to 10,000 if it's was quoted at nine just Yeah, sounds good.

Do we get multiple quotes? Is there a dollar limit? Anything beyond say $5,000? We get at least two quotes to compare. Do we do that? I think the number is higher than I thought it was like 30,000. I think it's much I think so. Yeah, I think it's Yeah, and we did have the the DPW did come and take a look at it. They they they then decided they needed to have a a company come in and take a look at it and that's when they brought in that Barnard roofing. Okay, Doug, I do have the quote from December 2024 here. 8,550. Great. Was there a motion? Uh, I heard

Do you want me to I guess I can um I'd like to make a motion to approve funding up to $10,000 um for Barnard Roofing for gutter repair. Second. Uh motion made and seconded. Any other discussion? Uh what's the funding source? Oh, thank you. Um by state aid. Funding source would be state aid. Um actually I'm sorry. strike that um I was going to propose funding from the leads um reimbursement since this is building related and basically related to the renovation project. Yeah, good idea.

So from the leads source technically I don't think we really need to approve it because that funding is um more or less controlled by the town but they're always asking us for our approval so can't hurt. Okay. So you made the motion. Any second? Yep. Motion made and seconded. Okay. Any discussion? Further discussion? Nope. Great. Um, so all those in favor? I opposed. I declare the motion carried. Thank you. Um, next on the agenda is the budget and finance update. Kim. Yes.

Okay. So Doug, you had asked what the over expenditure for fiscal year 25 was. Uh Mary Lauria got back to us on that. So the amount was $14,51044 and I have a list of things. Do you want me to go through them? I don't think um I guess you can just kind of quickly highlight the big big items.

Okay. So, energy, utilities, repair and maintenance, contracted services, rental and leases, library, communications, office supplies, educational supplies, periodicals, instate travel, and library programs. How much was the rental and leases portion of that? I read an email about that that was an issue regarding whether that was not in the FY26 budget and that notwithstanding this overage that we would still need to address that piece. Was it somewhere in the five or $6,000 range or is that Yeah, let me I'm going to try to pop this up. Will this work? Yep. Never mind.

Um so this is the requested funding. Um there's two sections. There's the unpaid expenses from FY25 and then some other um actually I think they're all FY25. Why does that say requests? But then the FY26 mentioned 6,000 by the previous director regarding um Oh, yeah. Yeah. Adding six grand, but that would still leave a $4,200 deficit.

Correct. That's for the the the copier machine rental fee. So there's the the two items. There's the top section which are some of the uh expenses um that weren't paid in time. That total is 1715 171559. The copier machine um majority of that came out of um the program budget for the rentals but there was a deficit of 4200. So that's in the request. Um Allison, who is Allison Kusher, who is our um what's her official title? She is head of

technical services. Thank you. So, she's the one that puts all the barcode things on it, all the um electronic um RFID things. Um and so she was in the process of redoing that a lot. Um and basically was no budget. It typically came out of the supplies. There was no budget in the supplies. So she's proposing the 275 and then the overexpendure um that Kim went through is the 14,51044. So the total request is 22,501103 from state aid. Um we do have plenty of state aid monies. I think it's in this document somewhere, right?

Yes. I did receive an update from Eileen today and she added two items to that. un unpaid expenses for FY25. One was for $37.99. Uh Gail, I have them attached here. When you say $37.99, $37.99. Okay. Sorry. $37.99.

And then um SNS Worldwide was $4.80. So it brought that number up to $1,730.77. Sorry. So the total would be 225013 plus 37.99 plus480. You said um $4.80. Yes. So the total request is $22,543.82.

Sorry, can I ask a question now? the over expenditure that has already happened and we need to go back and close that loop and that's one piece the number that we we talked about um the supplies needed for the electronic uh whatever that was that is for the current year or that's for 2026 budget that's for the current year which is FY26 current year is FY26 starting is the budget done for 2025 or is yeah that budget ended in July July

and that's the top part those were things that we incurred in the previous fiscal year but weren't paid on time and so that's where we got those expenses from and also that last big piece over expenditure of FY25. Okay. So that's all last budget year and the only new ones are those two items. Yeah. June 30th is the the town year end. Okay. So we already approved 2026 budget which will start from July July 1st. July 1st. So that's already in place. These two line items were not factored in in that. Correct. Got it. Okay. I'm up to speed. Yep.

So Mr. Chair, if you could just uh remind the the board about the state aid monies and whether they are able to be carried over from one fiscal year to the next. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. There's a there's a tricky thing though, right? Isn't there something with the interest? But yes, state aid money's um goes into our, you know, the state aid budget and that does carry over year after year,

right? And so so even though that's a deficit, the fact that this it's almost like a I guess you could call it an internal almost like a stabilization fund that that it exists as an overage that it that state aid money didn't disappear once we hit July 1st. And so by approving this from state aid, we're not eating into 26 state aid monies and that we're not facing a further deficit by using state aid. Correct. State do we get every year? State aid is about um 90 grand.

Yeah. I feel like there's two payments that are in the 40s. So 80 and 90 grand a year. And I think our state aid I think I saw it in here. I mean, um, the entire account balance is in this document. I think I saw our state aid balance is a little bit over $100,000. Any um, so the motion on the floor is to pay uh, an updated sum of $22,543.82 uh, from state aid. So, who made that motion? Yeah, nobody made that motion. Oh, no one's made that. I move

Doug just I move, Mr. J. I move that we uh vote to uh authorize uh payment from state aid in the amount of $22,513. Uh Nope, there's an updated Oh, I'm sorry. In the amount of $22,54382, pardon. Second. Motion made and seconded by Carrie. Uh any further discussion? Excellent. All in favor? I I opposed. I declare that motion carried. Thank you. Um friends update.

Yes. Um so the friends um are gearing up for the back to school book sale which will be taking place in August. So typically they collect the books um the donations on the first Friday and Saturday of the month. Um they um with the July 4th holiday and with upcoming book sale, they um did not have a book collection in July. Um and um the collection is going to be a little bit delayed. Um or um yeah, it's going to be a little bit later in the month. I guess not really delayed. Um, so they'll be accepting donations at the library starting on Monday, August 18th through Wednesday, August 20th, um, during regular library hours, which are 9:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Um, the library is not open on that Thursday, I believe, of the week um, on the 21st uh, for staff development day. Um, so but then when the library is open again on Friday, August 22nd, they again will be uh collecting accepting donations from 9:00 am to 6 pm. Um, and they can bring them right into the conference room A um and B, which is right um at on the left on the left as you come into the library. And then the actual book sale will be on Saturday, August 23rd from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. and Sunday, August 24th from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. So, um, so we hope everybody's able to join and get some really great deals, um, you know, for books, for returning back to school or for, you know, anybody who'd like to attend. And, um, it's a great fundraiser. Again, they um, fund um, our library, museum passes along with other programming in the library. So, we're very appreciative to their efforts

and and I'll just underscore another thank you in that uh both of these items connected are a huge community service and people look forward to both of these um both being able to give books and being able to buy them dirt cheap, really good quality books. And also those museum passes and park passes and things are are huge. So, thank you to the friends. Yes, they are definitely one of the most popular items. I think they're pretty much always checked out. Yeah. Okay, great. Any questions for Carrie on the Friends?

All right, hearing none, move on to policy committee update with Aaron. Um so the policy committee um decided not not to meet. Basically, um Kim and I are the the only members of the policy committee and and we decided that you know in the absence of a director um you know there's really no new policies um we need to work on and and I appreciate Prau for for um also volunteering to to join the committee. But at this point we got um kind of a positive update. I feel it's positive because we've been haven't brought any new policies to this board in a long time. And um so we got an update. Kim had just reached out to William Blake to see um where we were with um the policies we submitted to legal and I think it just happened to get lost. And so her her urging helped spear that into action. Um so it wasn't waiting for legal, it had just you know hit a hit a hit a wall um in in in getting to legal. So, um we're hoping that once we get those back, um I'll continue to facilitate moving those along the thread, which also means they need to go um for the um for the union review as well. And then they'll come um to the board of trustees for uh review and then vote at um one of our subsequent meetings. So hopefully those will be turned around pretty quick. Aaron, if I could ask, um, the ones that are now under legal review, is that does that encompass all of the ones to include those that are grayed out that we may sunset?

No. Okay. So, at some other point, we'll have to address those that are sort of grayed out. Yeah. So, I'm sorry. Mary's also um a part of the part of the policy committee as well, Mary Merland. Um so, she and um Tom kind of on on their last review uh before Tom left is um they felt like you said some policies were either inaccurate or just, you know, plain wrong and that they need to be re-reed. It's really up to us uh whether we feel that they are still serving a purpose or not and we want to put them back back up.

Okay. So perhaps um you know um Kim did you happen to um find the resource where all those uh policies were that were taken down. Yes. Yes. And we can perhaps share them with the board. In fact the email that I sent out to everyone you have the link. Yes. Yeah. Okay. So, you can see them. You can see what was sent to legal and you can see the old version of the policy. Okay. In that. So, the that was a link in the in the email. In the email. Okay. Yes. So, the ones that have been now are grayed out from the website are available in that email. Yes. Okay.

It looks like there's a couple of links. I'm sorry. There like the library display policy that doesn't have a hyperlink. But most of them, most of them do have a hyperlink, but those are going to legal, I believe. Okay. Yeah. So, some of the legal some of the legal ones have a hyperlink, some of them don't. There's five total, right? So, then look at the new one that's sent to legal. Okay. So, Oh, so that link. Okay. So, in column G.

Yeah. Do do we have either a direct opinion or an indirect communication from either the town administrator or the assistant town administrator as to the the basis that those are grayed out? In other words, that if they were grayed out in our absence, is that an overstepping of authority or did we even if we didn't discuss it, does anyone really have the authority to gray those grade those out on our behalf? So, so, so that was my initial thought as well,

you know, um because I said, well, why are these no longer on the website? You know, we these are policies that have been cleared by the board and have been voted on. And, you know, um I think we've been so backlogged that perhaps some of them um really don't communicate current um procedures or or policies of of the library. Um the one in particular that was really a um tough one for the library director to support was the parking policy which says nobody can use the the lot beside except for library use only which is um in in conflict with the town's you know without getting into a lot of detail that was one that they felt you know

well we will be discussing it later in the agenda. Yeah. Sure sure but I'll try to keep that brief. Sure. Um, so but Tom had reached out to the MBLC and it is under uh the director's purview to um you know take things down that are either illegal or you know um wrong flat out wrong is the way he communicated that to me. I I haven't reached out to the NBLC directly. I was you know taking that communication during our our last meeting we had I think in in June. Um and so that's That's uh right those were flagged and taken down.

And I'm not suggesting that it was done frivolously. I there was, you know, that seemed to be a good, you know, a good reason that thought out reason. Yeah, we have some strong um um talent on the policy committee uh especially with the library staff and um who've you know managed policy for for years. I mean they're they're the e experts, right? And um a lot a lot of it came down to is we have 32 policies and most libraries have no more than 12 to 15. So um I think there's just a methodology that we need to either come to an agreement you know almost starting from scratch right

what is it we're trying to communicate through policy you know because I think previous directors um may have written policy in response to incidents and not a lot of other libraries do that you know but we felt okay well we need to write a policy so that we and you know, hand it to somebody when they do this, right? You know, and I don't know if that's the approach that we want to necessarily take with our policy. So, that's kind of where we're at. So, what action items do we have or the policy committee has on these ones that have been flagged? Is that like the priority to review once you start working? Um

or should we should we be putting them back live online if this board agrees? Yeah, I think that um by next meeting I would have like I I would like every trustee to take a look at those policies and uh I think what we can do is we can agree to um either leave them off the website because they need work. We're not going to rework them, you know, between now and then, right? um or if um we feel it doesn't need to be taken down, if it still serves a a general purpose, we'll put it back. Um so that's I think the action item for for all of us.

Can I ask a question? Um so on the uh on the spreadsheet and thank you Kim, you know, for putting this together with the hyperlinks is great. Is it possible to indicate which ones have been taken down? Like just put a column in there to Yes, that would be helpful. So then we know Yeah. Even in the status column. Yeah. So in process. So the ones that were t I see what you're saying. So you would like maybe a specific column just to say they've been removed, right? Um I think that would be helpful just for because there's a quite a few flagged by the previous director. Yeah, I can do that. But these here is what was sent to

which and that's great. That's wonderful because it's very clear. Yeah. Great. So, so I don't need any feedback from any of the trustees between now and our next meeting because what we'll do is we'll decide to either put it up or or leave it off um on on those ones that have been flagged. So, our to-do is to review the ones that have been flagged as a priority and determine whether or not we would like to reinstate them as is. No changes. Okay. Yeah. Otherwise, it has to go back through the whole process again. Yep. Okay, that's fair.

And can you remind the board like were all of these some of them are from 2019 2020. Were all of these gone through legal review at the time they were approved or was that kind of before that? We don't we don't know. It's hard to say. I would I would hope so. I think we've been doing that for as long as I've been on the board. Yeah. Legal has reviewed them. I mean, not not not the union because um having a union then, but okay, sounds great. Any other questions for Aaron on the policies? Excellent. All right, hearing none, we will move on to new business. Um

we have a walkabout from Chris Bell. Oh, thank you. I remember that's through all my

I think it's a short one. Um, so Chris isn't here, but he did supply an update on the walkabout. Um, I I guess I can just quickly show some of the pictures, but um, a couple of the items were actually related to the the water um, issue and the gutter issue that I mentioned earlier. Um, so I mean, he's just kind of highlighting the fact that there's mulch on the sidewalks and on the patios from the water. This is the gutter at the um book return where you can just see that the water spilling over the the gutter on the the roof line is just landing and spreading out all the mulch. So hopefully that's going to be something that that gutter would get replaced. And then I think these were just some gardening comments.

Yep. Yep. All right. Um Chris, can I ask a question? Yeah, of course. So the the HVAC issue is that part of the um one place where it is like hot sun and desert and other place where it's the up the mountains cold uh is is that part of any of these list of items walk about or are we going to talk about that separately is that being at risk? I don't think there's anything about HVAC except for the comment earlier which is really just related to the um the yearly maintenance that Kim mentioned.

Yeah. And they came in also to replace those two inverter boards uh that affect the temperature in the community room. Okay. And the historic when I spoke to Ken Booty, he did say that and I know this was mentioned by Tom that the ceiling in the historic reading room, it's plaster and then it's outside. There's no insulation in that ceiling. It's a huge heat loss, which is why those LG units have been running like continually in the winter. Okay. Yeah.

So, and and John did say from uh Renat HVAC that they weren't quite sinking, so he's been in contact with a distributor. So, he's trying to work he's still trying to figure that out. But, he did replace the boards, those two boards. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's still it's still an ongoing issue that Renade is working with the library for. Okay. Okay.

Y Okay. Um so new business. Um first is just really the um activities around the library director search and interim director search. There's a couple right. So we've we last meeting we formed a subcommittee. That subcommittee has met. Um we have some candidates for interim library director. We have a couple candidates for the permanent um library director position. That subcommittee met. Um we are meeting again tomorrow night and then we're interviewing an interim director candidate early next week. Um so hopefully um all goes well and uh the committee will make a decision on if they're going to uh suggest that candidate for hire um in which case we would have to have an an ad hoc meeting because we're going to want to do that before our um before our August meeting. Um so for day-to-day business um uh subgroup Chris Pravu and I met with the department heads and kind of went through they had a couple things they wanted to speak to us about. Um obviously we wanted to meet with them to get what their short-term and day-to-day activity concerns were. um out of that meeting. Um the suggestion and it was based on what happened the last search is that the um four department heads would kind of function as a um I guess library director by committee. Um so any decisions that needed to go in front of the library director um the the four of them would take care of. Um I think as a board we should kind of vote to approve that uh tonight. Um so that they have like the official vote that

they're functioning as the library director. This would of course be short term. This would only be until the interim director is hired. Um I still there still you know similar to if there was a library director if there were any budget questions any approvals that needed um the board approval that's still all that stuff is still going to come to the board of course. So what would that motion look like?

Um I would guess just that we support the four department head. Well let me actually let me finish something else. So in combination with that um the union has requested a stipend for those four um managers um to receive a stipen. Essentially they're going to be operating or functioning beyond their job responsibilities. They're going to be you know essentially the four of them combined are going to be functioning like a library director. So they've asked for a stipend. That contract is currently with the town. Um but I think I can I can propose a motion to the board tonight um to fund that request as well. So they kind of go hand in hand. Um I don't really I mean I'm open to other suggestions um about how we can function dayto-day without you know anybody in charge or something like that but that seemed to work fairly well last time um having them function as like director by committee

and I'm you appreciative that they're willing to step up and do that. I mean they know the you know they know the library operations I think um and then you know when the interim director comes in they you'll be able to support that person as well. So make sense. Yeah. So my only question is then um the library director would support to would report to the board, right? There's no library director. So where's the oversight? I think the the four of them would function and they would come as a group to the board for any they'd have to bring things that the director would usually come bring to the board. Correct.

I see. And some of those have already been happening like the fire, you know, the fire alarms been going off. So, um through Kim, they came to me and you I approved like obviously that's something that just had to get taken care of pretty quickly. Um having someone come out and look at that. Um, so I think I I don't know how that's going to look on day-to-day activities, but um, yeah, I'm fine with that so long as, you know, they don't report to the to the board of trustees because they can't, right? But, um, as long as any items that need to come to the board. So, so sorry, that's one piece. The funding is the second piece.

Um, and then on the next agenda item, we're talking about the Aerys report. Um, one of the requirements of the ARIS report is that there is a director in place. Um, either an acting director, an interim director, or permanent director. Um, so the board, this board also needs to um come up with a solution on who's going to be acting director. Um, you'll recall, well, you may may or may recall, but the last time the town administrator um supported us in that role, so he was the acting director, which was, you know, super helpful then. Um, but the town administrator does not have the bandwidth to do that now.

So, the proposal now would be to name one of the senior staff as acting director. And it really is um well, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but it's really just a on paper thing because we need to have a person that's labeled acting director for the report. Doug, did they make a proposal as to who that person would be? They proposed Mary. Mary

because she's doing the report. she's doing the air report. Um actually it was either between I think the two senior um Mary and Sarah both are qualified and um offered to be the acting director but it makes I think most sense that Mary does it because she's the one that's filling out the ARIS report. And again this is temporary until we hire the interim director. I have a quick question on that and again I only have experience with like boards for like nonprofits and corporations not government organizations but traditionally the chair of the board steps in as the interim in name right because that way even if you have other people making decisions like the accountability still falls with the chair so I I guess are we not doing that because of like some nuance within this the structure. Um I just

I can honestly say I'm not we haven't really experienced this before. So it's a good question if if someone either the the chair of the board or someone else on the board would function as the acting director. Certainly don't have the the library experience, right? No, but again we just want to make sure decisions are being made like and the right level of decision like you would know if something needs to come to the board, right? if something can be made just within those directors and if it's really for the AIS report like and you're probably getting a lot of the day-to-day stuff like the fire alarms anyway

I guess I I would just throw that out for discussion would we go with more of a a model like that and not because we don't appreciate them stepping up and being willing to but I in all my prior experience that's normally how that's played out so I'm not against doing something different I I just would like to understand maybe the nuances and why you'd go one way versus the other. Yeah, I had the same same question as well. Um the only I think part that gets gray if we you know someone on this board is appointed the interim library director is that the chair of the board also has to sign the errors report. Right. That's true.

You know so there's that kind of gray area too. Um, again, I don't have any any issue with um having an acting director on on paper um so long as that it doesn't um you know require them to be the director and decision maker because that's not the intention.

Right. So is is the motion then is it limited to for the purposes of the ARIS report or it was at least that was the conversation I recollect uh on paper for the ARIS report would be someone to be named and then collectively the four members the four senior staff members the managers they would be the acting director as a committee that Doug was referring to yeah I And then that's exactly what Mary proposed. She said um that that they would be consider filling in this position for the error report with the understanding that it would not change the current agreement with the um director by committee idea.

Mr. Chair, yeah, also Mary mentioned that there is an an additional financial report that will need to start next week in addition to AIS. So do you know which one that is? But you did mention that it would be something that needs to get started next week. Yeah. And it would be due in September. I know ARIS is due August 15th and this other report was due in September, but she said it would need to get started on um next week. Yeah. Okay.

So, do the do the four managers are they is there a clear delineation of duties? This it just sounds like it could be confusing when you have this overlap of an acting director for the ARIS report and and this other report, but also this overlap of acting director by committee for everything else. Are those is this outlined somewhere in writing where where they all know their roles and where they that people aren't stepping over each other's um you know feet and

well they each have their own departments right they're they're managers of their departments and then they report it together so Cyrus for the children's Mary's you know for the but you still have to make sure there's like I think there's a minimum number of people that have to be at the library at a time to make sure I Right. So, but but they do that already because Tom wasn't there all the time. No, but I think he used to my understanding was approve vacations and stuff. So, he could double check that. So, I guess Right. I mean, he was approving vacation time. He was approving um people, you know, when they needed to fill in that vacant time, people picking up additional hours, stuff like that. Um

I have a question on that subject. I I've been approving leave requests for the staff because the managers have approved it. Yeah. But what happens with management, the department heads? Who's who's in charge of approving their leave request? Do I reach out to you to ask?

That's a good question. I mean, I would presume it would be this director by committee if we decide that it's the four directors or four managers. And they're really I mean their hours are different, you know. So I think it's really smart having the four of them because there are managers that are on site at different times. There's always a manager but they're not all there always at the same time. So and they would need to coordinate anyways. If if one manager wants to take a vacation, then they need to work together and come to like a compromise to in order to open and close because the manager that opens and closes. And how do they reconcile any differences? Well,

you know what I mean? If there are differences, there might be some logistical things where people may not agree and it's a split vote or I I would hope that everything would be done in a way that would end up being, you know, unanimous that there wouldn't be any um sort of conflict that that they're not doing things on the same page. Yeah. So, so may I um really town employees, right? Um if there's nobody to report to, they would report up to the next level, which I would say if there was any sort of conflict, you know, it would have to go to the town administrator. I like that it's being worked out on their own, right?

That that could be difficult, but I like that they're probably talking about it and figuring out how to work out coverage. That's fantastic because no no no business no leader really wants to have to pick and choose you versus you. It's better to to have have them work it out together and they know better too what the coverage is like they there's nobody that knows it better than they do the administrator would just go back to them and say well what do you need yeah and that would be the same thing but it would never come back to this board we wouldn't be timely enough to be correct

that leads to something else that I want to bring up to the board our temp pool we were at five we're now at like pretty much two because someone one of them we have three left one went back to college and one has a new job. So, we're down to three and one is traveling for the whole month of August. So, that leaves us with two. So, we're really lean right now and I'm already running into a little problem with finding coverage for the children's room and borrower services. Um, do we recruit for the temps like if we need more or um I think Mary has been hiring. Can can I so yeah the agenda the post one

yeah I want to I want to go back to the acting director and the the director by committee we can address that later so what I hear is there's kind of two options one would be um well first agree that the four managers will be functioning as like the director by committee for lack of a better name um and then the acting director would either be one of them which would be Mary or would be I guess the chair of this of the library trustees would be those two options for the errors report for the yeah for the errors report

so so so may I so we keep saying just the errors report but that's not really true so the last time when we um had appointed um the town administrator uh I wanted to ask the board do you recall why we did that I don't believe it was just for the eros report some other requirement from the MBLC required us Well, have an acting director. I actually asked that question and um the last time the AIS report wasn't directly involved because the director resigned in November. Yeah. And so, you know, the ARIS reports not until the summer. Um so, I know what it was. It was state aid. We in order to get it state aid, we had to have um an acting director. And

well, that's that's likely from the ARIS report. I mean, because the AIS report is what defines the state aid. Got it. Got it. So even though the ARIS report wasn't being written then um we still needed the acting director for that reason. So there's a bit more to it and and I was told that without an acting director signed Yeah. on on with MBLC we lose we potentially could lose our certification and funding. Right. Yeah. Which is true because that's all through the ARS report.

Doug, I did have one other thing. So farther down the agenda, the board support model for the director transition was actually kind of about some of this. So I had an idea to throw out, but if you want to table that for later, I just it was it was kind of similar around how we can support the staff too almost. We have that acting director, whoever we list, it seems like there's three areas that there's a lot of support needed. One is finance, right? I think we spend a lot of time saying, well, where are we paying that bill? what's coming up, right? So, like do we actually choose like a couple people from the board who kind of are the go-to person for finance questions? Do we choose another one for building? Right? So, if the fire alarms going off, it goes to those two board people who have said we'll raise our hand and help support as stuff comes up through the week around that. And then the third one could be more around like the staffing HR, right? So, as we talk about like leaves or needing to get more like like people hired for part-time, right? like they could have those smaller committee meetings which I don't think we need to do open meeting law right and at least help move and facilitate some of that along before we all get back together too. So, I just wanted to throw that out, right, as we talk about supporting them, we we obviously need some kind of interim, right?

But maybe we can tag team as a board in those those three areas. Yeah. Um not set on it, but those were just some of the themes I feel like are our big chunks and and where maybe the staff needs some some leadership decisions in the interim, too. And obviously to everyone and Carrie, your point, right? They absolutely know what they're talking about way more than us, right? But I don't want to put them in a situation where they have to make a decision that maybe they're not fully comfortable with, right? Or they're having to work through things they shouldn't because I don't think that will help with a a healthy transition for them either longer term. So

they are all comfortable going to like the typical um you point person is Doug as the chair though, right? So, but I but if you think it's too much with the Well, I mean the the finance in the building most of that's going to I mean any of us can answer questions but ultimately it's going to have to come before the whole board for approval. So that's not going to change but you know maybe helping answer some of those quick questions. So, let's I think it sounds like first what we need to do is everybody on board with this director by committee model. Um seemed to work well that last time. Um yeah, I think so.

And then if so, what about the acting director position? Yeah, I I'm on board with that with you know the acting director and it makes sense because Mary's doing the report or and if and they were in agreement with that right when you met with them. That's what one of the things they proposed, but I don't I don't know if they considered having the chair act as the acting director,

especially because if it's just by name, if they're doing it just to say like they're signing off on those things, too. I think Erin, it was your point that said like if you're named like like acting director, like you do have a certain scope, right? Like we're not limiting the scope with that too. So, I I just personally feel like I don't have enough information on like the like what we're enabling them to be able to do by by granting that. I absolutely agree. We should get the errors report submitted and we need we need someone to sign it and I want to make sure we have our funding, right? I I just don't know the implications of that.

Yeah, I think the the idea with the director by committee would be all those questions that the board never heard about, right? It's those day-to-day staffing. I'm not too worried about the by committee piece. I guess it's the naming the interim. Right. So like if we were to break those two apart like Yes. like Right. I think it's the the name. They are separate. You're right. Yeah. So that's how they want to function and we feel comfortable that that's fine. I just

Do we see any downsides with having um Mary as a staff, you know, manager be the acting director? I think that's the question on the table and and I don't um I kind of echo your feeling too. I think it was great when it was the town administrator because they're an town employee who's kind of um you know responsible for all the town departments. Um it's unfortunate that he he can't fill that role just in name. Um but um why why don't we at least uh vote for the um the the director by by committee. Yep.

For the day-to-day. Um and then I think we have a little bit of time to make a decision on uh well the two pieces that are really important would be the director by committee and the funding for the stipend for the the the four of them. But then the acting director um you know if we don't vote today we're going to have to have another meeting within the week because we need to get that in that eros report on the that's due on the 15th. It's due on the 15th but Mary's last day is I think the seventh or eth. So it really needs to be done by the seventh or eth of August. Okay. Mary did indicate that when she spoke to the MBLC, the person that's doing the report, which is Mary, would be ideally the person to sign as the

as the acting director. Yes. And it sounded to me like she made it pretty clear to me that this is important. They need to know before we leave tonight. Yeah. Delay. Yeah. And would the acting director then once we have an interim director, you can't have both at the same time? In other words, as soon as we hire the interim director, the acting director and the actual director by committee would be dissolved. All right.

Or whatever. And to Rachel's point, I don't know what what the implication is of naming an employee right now as an acting director and how that impacts their authority over their peers. Honestly, I think it was just for Mary to complete the ARIS report and they were going to do um by committee. That's what they said. That's what she said in So then we're back to the original issue of actually reigning in that scope of the acting director to either be um the ARIS report or this ARIS report and the second report that you said is due in September.

It's the for fiscal year 26 that started. Yeah. So, is there any harm that would come out of limiting the scope of the acting director's duties to those reports? Good question.

Yeah. Or we could even say if the acting director was to make any decisions or assign anything as acting director, they had to first confirm what the chair of the board like just something to make sure like we at least have some understanding of what they're doing as acting director would make me feel like a lot more comfortable, right? So even if it is Mary who signs, it's just anytime she's signing or doing anything from an acting director like as long as you're looped and done without us having to reconvene that he could Yeah. You're reviewing the errors report anyway. So you'd be reviewing it too.

Potential we when we met and when we spoke the potential is what if the interim director doesn't get filled in for a longer duration what if the uh the back fill for the director position doesn't get filled in for a longer time that is the implication. So if you factor that in if you name someone as an acting director so I think that's where I was in alignment with your thought. Initially the conversation was all about the errors report and then probably the second one. But if this doesn't happen then should we have the same person continue being the acting director or should that come back to the meeting as an agenda item and say it to the board and say that we talk about it again. The board can always we can always terminate the current acting director and you know bring in another different acting director. For sure.

Yeah. So Mr. Chair, would you just to hopefully wrap up this discussion, would you feel that it would be properly worded or in order to receive a motion that we um I'm not making a motion yet, but I'm throwing this out that we um name Mary Merlin as acting director um for the purposes of reports and that uh also name the four managers as as um what term I'm looking for uh as as sort of director by committee. Director by committees. Acting director by committee.

Acting no director director by committee. Yeah. I mean but if they're directed by committee and we're in charge of the director. Yeah. So to me, the acting director is basically like the spokesperson of the four of them and also um takes care of that AIS report definition. But as you said too, she would need to speak to you to get final approval. Well, I think we'd want to put that in in our proposal. I think we'd want to state that. Yeah.

Yeah. I think if in we say that any like anything signed or decisions made as acting director is first reviewed and approved by Doug like I would I would feel more comfortable too because when you say reports like there could be other reports like just I think that continuity will help. So through you missia maybe Rachel has some really good wording for get the verbiage. I I don't know. No you had it so nicely. Well why don't we do it as two separate motions. Yeah, that's probably way easier. That's a good idea. Yeah.

So, uh I'll make a motion to um accept the proposal for the uh four department heads to um uh work as uh director by committee um with um um as stipend um to supplement uh that work to be named later and and voted on by the board. And then I would just add pending an agreement between the union and the town of Grafton. Yeah. Second. Motion made and seconded. Thank you, Erin. Um, any further discussion? I don't understand why we wouldn't call it acting director by committee because it's because we need we need one person for the acting director,

but they're it still doesn't make sense to me that they would combine be the director. That doesn't I understand we need to have one person named to put on the report, but they're still get they're really together acting. They're the acting director by committee and then we're having one official name, you know, to to put on the report. That's doesn't make sense to me. Well, I wanted to do it as a separate motion just because, you know, this proposing person could have been anybody. I think she's proposing that the by committee name is called acting director by committee. Yeah.

Yeah. And then the spokes we could say that the you know we could say that Mary Martin will serve as the spokesman acting director. What I understand is that Mary is also part of the four people that were right. She is I mean I'm I'm okay with the motion as as stated personally. Yeah. I would do that and then we can talk about the named individual.

Are you saying that you don't um it's it's not necessary to add that if we're doing a a motion right now as it currently exists would be directed by committee with the four directors. Y um can that end with just one motion where and I think Carrie may be alluding to this and have Mary Merlin be the spokesperson for the those reports or does the IRS report need to be signed by someone who has been named an acting director?

Okay, gotcha. So we do need two motions. I I I'm supportive of Barry being named as an as an the acting director, but the other four are also together combined acting as a director by committee. So they're they're not the direct they're still acting director. They're not So that seems to be a contradiction that you'd have a director by committee and an acting director. So do you normally have a director by committee and then have an acting director? That seems like a contradiction as well. I think that's what I'm saying. The director by committee I think is just is just a name. I mean we could we can name it anything. Can name it, you know. Yeah.

So So the reason why I said it that way is because it doesn't necessarily have to be Mary Merlin is the acting director. It could be, you know, let's say the town administrator said that they wanted to be, you know what, I do have time. I'll be the acting director. Right? So that's why I wanted to kind of separate it out. I just wanted to make sure that we were okay with the proposal that the managers were going to handle. I mean, we could just say um management by committee or something like that or

or a committee a committee to assist the acting director and it turns out that the acting director could be one of them as as is going to be the case that that you don't I think it muddies the waters by using the term director in in in the context of this committee. um and maybe call it a a committee of committee of directors, you know, um to to assist the acting director. I may actually have wording now. So, okay, maybe we could say so I'll make a motion that the day-to-day operations of the library are coordinated among the four department heads at the library.

Is there a motion? Was there a motion already on the floor though? Correct. There was already second. It's already been seconded. Oh, sorry. But I guess it just maybe just say the day-to-day operations will be supported, right? Across the four leaders. I don't know if we have to like give them a title. Could we call it um we could have Mary be the acting director and then we could have the acting director supporting committee and then the other managers are are a part of the supporting committee. So frankly, I think they're wasting a lot of time. I know I think this we're all talking semantics. So, right. So, I think the theory and concept is the same.

We either um vote for this in in the negative or I rescend it and somebody wants to restate it, whatever that may be. Um I'm in support of what they have proposed. Um so, y that's fine. I'm And what are we calling it again? Um the motion said director by committee. Yes, that that's what that's what they called it. It could be lowercase director because they are handling responsibilities of the director and we are giving them proposing to give the money for this. Right. Right. So it's additional responsibility. Okay. So motion on the floor. Um if if assuming everyone's clear what that motion is. Um all in favor? I I

opposed. We have one opposed. All right. I declare the motion carried. Um so then the next step would be um funding the four managers. Um so I make a motion. So the the current proposal contract that the um union and the town are working on is uh a total of $1,600 a week. So it's $400 per manager per week. Um I was going to propose funding that for a month. uh hoping with you know um optimistic that we're gonna have a new interim director before our next board meeting but if not then next board meeting we can extend that. Does that make sense?

Can I ask how that compared to like um the director's weekly like pay just so a good question. Um so the monies we need to actually I need to thanks for bringing that up. I need to define a funding source because it's not through the personnel budget. It's going to have to be a external funding source because because it's a bonus type of thing. It's extra contractual. I think the biggest concern was that

um we have the budget for the library director. We are going to have to hire an interim director. We're going to have to hire a permanent director after that. We don't know what that salary is going to be and so we don't want to take away from that current budget when we don't know what the budget requirements are going to be for those positions. May I thought this was going to be net neutral. You already had at least we that was my understanding. We have the money. We don't have the individual who's going to be paid that be the interim director or the permanent director and we were going to dip into the pool to pay for the stipen.

I think that was the original concept. The concerns the town administrator has is you dip into that pool for whatever this period of time is. If we hire somebody that's going to warrant a salary that's higher than what the current budget is, we don't have funding for that. And so the town administrator suggested that we look for an external funding source like state aid. And state aid is is there for paying for resources. So, okay. I'm I'm

mean that's I mean that's just um that's just what the current proposal is. So, we're obviously willing to change it, but so I would make a motion to fund the um the management by committee group um for a maximum of $1,600 a week um for a period of I don't know be four weeks. Four weeks time four would be 25,600. We did it for four weeks. 25. No, no, no. It's 1,600 total. Sorry. So, it's um Oh, 1,600,400. Okay.

So, for a total of $6,400 for the first month. Um and then we would um have to meet again to extend that if we have not hired inter director. Maybe we should do a little bit of wiggle room. So, be 6,400 for four weeks. Um, so you said you so you made a motion of your I didn't make I don't know if I finalized the motion yet because I was trying to come up with the numbers

and and and not not to interrupt you but to interrupt you. Um, does this throw a kink in the contract negotiations? In other words, the fact that we're landing on a number before they've contracted the the the um the conditions of that from my conversation with the town administrator today that the numbers have been agreed upon. It's just other Sorry, I should have said that. There's some small pieces that they're working out. All right. If they came up with a different number, we could all they could we could always adjust. So, us voting on that. I'm going to say that the number is is has already been um agreed upon.

Okay. All right. Right. I just wanted to make sure we weren't going to preempt and and throw a monkey wrench into their contract negotiations. Yep. Was there a hours? How many hours per per manager per week? $400 per person per week against how many hours? It's stipen for their It's a stipen. So, it's an addition. So, it's their normal 35 hour work week, but it's it's to cover the additional responsibilities they have. Okay. Yep. So, the motion on the floor, I'll just reiterate it, is to approve the funding of um $1,600 a week. I'm just worried about four-week number. Do you want to do eight weeks or you want to do

I'm going to I'm going to go six weeks because it'll at least cover it till our next meeting. Um so, uh $1,600 a week for six weeks, that's $9,600 um out of state aid. Second. Well, go ahead. Second. Motion made and seconded. Um any further discussion? Great. Um hearing none, all those in favor? I opposed. Great. Thank you. I think that's I mean that between the committee and the funding um that's a huge step to get the library kind of functioning normally or somewhat normally in their day-to-day operations.

Um so then the final one would be the decision on the acting director. So I'll entertain a motion for that as well. I move that we I move to nominate Mary as the acting director for the errors and the financial report. Second. Uh motion made and seconded. any discussion

um to to um our early discussion about whether by limiting it I guess to those reports um that that not that she would but she or anyone else named as acting director could say well that falls out of the scope of what the library trustees voted on. So, do we still want to limit it to those reports? Do we anticipate that there will be activities out of the scope of those reports and signing off those reports that Mary may need to address in and of her of her own accord versus the committee doing it? And then I guess conversely um if we're putting in the errors report that she's the active director but then it's just limited just to doing the report does that fulfill the need for the ARIS report like would they find that acceptable if we have a limit because they're they're asking that somebody's the acting director right

without without limiting without limiting. Yeah. Okay. All right. Um so um through you Mr. Chair. Um well first has anyone seconded that yet? I did. Yeah. All right. Um either without through you Mr. Chair without uh objection by the committee and with consensus of the committee maybe either have uh probably withdraw entirely his motion and Aaron his second or modify it to not be limited to just the reports.

Yeah, I think that does make sense. Um because the acting the acting director, the interim director, they're all going to still have the same responsibility about coming to this board to get board approval for the stuff that they normally would have approval for anyways. All right. This is why I was saying before that it should be acting director and then the acting board supporting committee because then like yes she's going to be part of that committee but she's kind of like the nominal head but then it all kind of works together because it's confusing to say that you have this I think that's just it's just semantics in my opinion right I mean it's just four of them are are functioning as the leadership team

right and they would they would bring stuff and not not Mary is not a spokesperson that's not what we're appointing her to do but Then in the eros report are we fulfilling the requirement of the heirs report that you have an acting director I think so we name an active director that's what was uh informed I think we are on a report we name an acting director at the naming an acting director for a report and the other report to me was different from performing the role of an acting director it's it's it's analogous to it's analogous to when the town administrator was the acting director I mean he didn't he didn't make those day-to-day decisions it was still the leadership But but he took on the role. I mean he was correct. He took on the role. He took on the role but he wasn't limited.

So you're recommending that Prau withdraw his motion entirely and Aaron withdraw his second or to modify his main motion? I still feel that my motion stands. Okay. It's primarily for the two reports. We are naming Mary as the acting director for these two reports to be submitted. The acting director role is being performed by the group of four. Right. I agree. I agree. Yeah, that makes sense because I think that were it not for these the um the ARIS report and and the second report, we wouldn't even be going through this exercise of making this separate motion. Right.

And um from my perspective, if we discover something is not kosher with the MBLC, we can come back and modify it. I guess my one still concern is right this this as like an acting director, right? like we're just talking about like kind of keeping the lights on. Like a true acting director kind of has a larger scope than just keeping the lights on, right? We haven't really defined. So I just worry without like some clause in there that like before making like decisions outside of just the day-to-day short-term operating not needing to come back to the chair of the board. Right. I I just think it's a

but does but you're but you're agreeing with the current motion because that does state that it's report yes but I guess the yeah I guess I'm just still hitting some of the stuff of like is that tr like truly the scope. So if it's really just those two and then if we need something else they can come back four. That's that's my opinion is the Yeah. I mean the decision-wise it's going to be the group of four but if it's something that the MBLC isn't happy with or whatever then we can come back in this group and adjust it next time. Okay. Um well the motion on the floor. I'll I'll put it out for a vote. All those in favor I I opposed. All right. Declare the motion. What

can I abstain? Abstain. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's fine. We have one abstain. I'm offended. Sorry. I have too many open questions. My first morning. Well, I will also say that I have reached out to MBLC and had a number of questions and I haven't heard back from them yet. So, no, that's we could learn something tomorrow. Yeah.

Um, thank you. I think this goes a long way in obviously the errors report, which is a critical report, but also just uh the daily functional library. Um, so I think the next one, the errors report. I'm moving on in the agenda. Um I think that this is really just more of a notification. Um Mary had agreed last week uh to um start working on that eros report and it was really critical that she started as soon as possible. Um I will say she will need help. Um so I've offered trustees I'm like I said if you guys if you need anything that the trustees can provide please let me know. Um obviously she's going to primarily have to rely on other staff for that report. Okay. Um, moving on. I do see that it's 8:30. Um, so if anyone has an opinion on passing over agenda items, obviously speak up. Um, so D is a community room rental request. Um, this is somewhat related to the policies, but we have a staff member who has requested to use the community room after hours. Um, we have a policy in place. Um,

you have a procedure in place that a working procedure, right? Well, I was going to go. We have a policy in place for the facility rental. Yes.

Um, we're working on a policy I'm sorry, we're working on a procedure that will allow that room to be used after hours. Um, I think the main concerns with the previous library director was the procedure for opening and closing the library. Um, so I see this as a perfect opportunity given that it would have been a staff member that was responsible for the after hours event to open and close the facility and given that this person is a staff member. I see it as a great opportunity to work through that procedure and make sure that procedure is written well enough um to allow you know future groups to do that. Um,

so does the staff member get compensated for after hours? That's a good question. And so as part of our facility rental fee, I'm sorry, part of our facility rental policy, there is a fee that you need to pay. Okay. And the goal of that fee was to pay the staff member to open and close the or a person to open and close the library. Okay. Um so in this case, I would say that we would just wave the fee since it's one and the same person.

I guess the one question I'd have on that is I believe we need a staff person there because the alarm system doesn't work to close off the rest of the building. So if the person's at the event, they can't work it and make sure that people aren't like lording through the rest of the library, right? So we have we have the the gate. There is a gate that locks the upper building. Now technically someone could jump the the gate, but it's not trivial to do that. And they can lock the children's room and the teen's room. So they can't So So you just have access to the bathroom. So like the friends corner, community. Yeah. So just Okay. Yeah. They can't go upstairs, but they could use the facilities.

The the building would re the security alarm would be disabled, but the building would remain locked throughout the event. So that person would be responsible for letting people in and out of the building. Um, so that that's part of it. I'm sorry. So I I misunderstood. So the community room, I have been there for certain events. I thought that by itself can be closed. Are we saying the is that the big hall? That's the one we When you walk. Yeah. So, the lobby when you go in that entrance, that that lobby with the bathrooms and the kitchen and the kitchen and the community room are all separated. The

uh teen room at the end, the children's room in the end can be locked. So, the only access they would have is to the bathrooms, the friends corner, and the community room. So, when I attended the event, it was we came in through the other door for the community room. We didn't come in through the main entrance. Technically, they could technically they could be coming in and out of the community room, but those doors lock. So you somebody have to let them and they could take the elevator upstairs. But I mean the the the the design goal of the building block the elevator. Yeah. So they couldn't the elevator was the reason the bathrooms were put there, right, were for after hours events. The whole reason why that floor was designed that way was to be able to have the afterhour events.

Okay. I guess the only other thought is if we were to approve it, I'd want to say it depended on those the four acting directors being okay because if anything happens out of it, right, they kind of have to deal with what comes out of it. So I I think I would just want to keep that in mind too, right? We don't act like to your point, it's a really great opportunity this one, but we also don't have a leader in place if something was to happen. Um, so just something to consider as we're going through it, too. Yep. So, um, I think we're looking for, uh, approval by the board for this request, right?

Correct. Um, so I can make a motion. Um, do we need to name anybody in the motion? Can I just before we make a motion, is it a personal event because we in the policy it's there's like um like we don't charge not forprofits you to to use the community room but then if it's like a like a family would so I know we it is a personal private event. Okay. Which again is why I think that that they should be charged for the event so that you could pay the staff to run the event but given that it's one and the same. Well, I mean, we can obviously we can still vote to charge that. I think the person's willing to pay,

but it was a fairly nominal fee. I feel like it was like $50 or $100. I can't remember what the policy said. So, I I don't have the details of the event, so I think we need to be specific in terms of the date. Well, again, yeah, I mean, it's it's a public place, so we can say date and times for for for a public public event. I mean, not a public event, but a you know, a private event because the public can't attend the event. That's a private event. But I'm just I'm channeling Rachel in terms of like saying, you know, times and places, you know, and names.

Can I ask one other question? So, in terms of the policy, do we what's the liability for the library and the town? Do we ask them to take care of liability? Do they have to provide any event insurance as part of this? Well, that that's the other thing too like um if there's any like beverage like you know are they getting a liquor light you know that type

that's that's defined in the policy. So they would have to have the appropriate um cert certification to do that. So there's no plans for that. I do have in front of me here the the paperwork. A $100 per hour fee for businesses, company events. Um, a cleaning fee, cleaning deposit of $100 is required and due in advance. A deposit equal to the first hour of rental, $50 or $100. So, it must be 50 for private and 100 for business, is required to secure the facility's rental reservation. But we don't talk about any insurance level insurance third party or otherwise.

Yeah. Um I'd have to read through this and see. I believe this came up in the past and um it's a it's a municipal building. It's a town building. Um and the town has, you know, insurance that covers um any sort of I mean I guess private or public event. Um but if there was any if they're serving like any alcohol like they would not be covered under the town insurance like so um if they hire a caterer um they could get a liquor license you know to you know that would cover it but

if if they're breaking the law then you know then that's a different matter. says all outside services any companies, firms, agencies, individuals or groups hired by or on behalf of the meeting uh person hosting the meeting shall be insured and are subject to the prior approval by the library. Do we know if this is a non-alcoholic event? It's a baby shower. It's a baby shower, but is it non-alcoholic? Well, yeah. I don't think I think the policy if there's alcohol they have to have a a tip certified

whenever they call that tip certified person that would have to happen. So I don't expect that to be the case. Okay. But do we know that for a fact? I mean just because we call it a baby shower doesn't mean that I mean we would have to ask that. And if she is having alcohol at this event we would need a tip certified individual. All right. So do are you asking uh Mr. chair for a name that well a date and a named individual and whether we're going to wave the fees. Um I suppose that would be the best course would be to name the person the um the date. I mean we have all that. I mean it's Susan Leo staff and it's for August 24th

and and with the understanding though that in waving the fees that she's not only responsible for locking up but for cleaning the room. That's I guess I think I we don't have to wave the fees. I think if we want to I feel like if we charge the fee they're gonna say great, we'll leave it a mess and walk out. I know Susan wouldn't do that, right? But I think generally um that can be misconstrued as well, I paid you the fee. You know, good luck cleaning up. The the the cleaning fee is a deposit. It's not like it's it is a deposit. The goal of that was if there was any damage that would pay for the refundable fantastic thing. I think we should charge that. Okay. I agree with that. I think that's fair. The refundable

and we should keep the fee in case like she would rather have someone else there so she doesn't Right. Like Yep. In case well she h she couldn't we'd have to have a staff person. Yes. Absolutely. Okay. Somebody else can make a motion. Go ahead. I mean, I'll make a motion. I mean, um, uh, I make a motion to approve the use of the community room, uh, for a baby shower by Susan Leo on August 24th. August 28th to 24th. 24th. Okay. It's a Sunday. Okay. Second. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. That's when that's Oh,

that's when the friends No, no, that's when the book sale is. How did that conflict right on a Sunday? Yes, it's Saturday. The 23rd and 24th. That's That's a Sunday. Yeah, you spent all We already put the flyers are already out and that it should be on the website, too. And it's Yeah. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm I'm very sorry, but yeah, that's been they've been planning for that. It's already been publicized. I don't know how that happened, but So, in other words, the friends the friends the friends already the friends booked it. It's already been publicized and 11 to two.

It's a it's 11 to two, but even if it wasn't 11 to two, all the books are in there. The table's in there. It takes time to break down everything. Now, the other question I have, I'm glad you caught that. And I don't even know if I should put this out there, but the historic reading room, would that be an option for Susan. That's a good question. I don't think I don't know if that's specifically outlined in the policy with a it is in the policy and it it has to be approved by the board. I believe it's my recollection. I can't pull it up on my

I I guess I would just throw out again, right? Like we don't have a director to keep all our ships like passing each other. like we almost had a little crash here, right? So, like if we felt there was a a big need to be able to do it, right? I think we just have to be aware that we're we're a little short staffed and if something must have happened like like we would have to be on call for whatever happened. And maybe once we have an interim director like appointed, I don't know. I think it's just something for the group to be aware of, right? we can only do so much and like is this the moment like we want to be taking on on more I think the bigger issue is there might be just a conflict in the facility.

Yeah. Yeah. Yes. I mean I personally don't think it would be a problem to use the historic reading room um for certainly for like a beach shower. I don't think that would be a problem but and that so that's not being used that area is not being used for the friends that day. They only used conference room A and B. Okay. But you wouldn't have the you wouldn't have it all secured. You know it would it doesn't you know the No, but then they wouldn't have but then they wouldn't have access to the kitchen facilities and all the things that you you might need. You would probably need I I think it would M

I mean, I can't speak for Susan and and and her family or friends, but I can't see where that would be that that all you would need is just a physical space versus a place where you would have serving facilities and and a refrigerator for beverages and things like that. It and and then Yeah, you're right. And the and then they would probably want to have access to be able to go back and forth. I think it would be chaotic. So, so to move the discussion, I know I think I need to So, what I would say is, right, I would offer maybe a different date. Um, if if they're willing to move their date, I think we would be amendable to it allowing them to use the

Okay, that's a good point. Um, so then I will withdraw my motion. Okay, I withdraw my second. Yep. Thank you for the discussion, consideration. Um, all right. Moving on because what are we at? We're at 8:45. Yeah, actually we're doing pretty well, I think. Yep.

Um, capital campaign Aaron Vanstein. Yeah. So, I just brought wanted to bring this up because I hadn't seen it on the agenda since um since uh Dana had left because she was a representative of the capital campaign and I think that unless the capital campaign is disbanded, I think the board needs to still know or hear a report from from that capital campaign representative. And if that's not um a trustee, um that can be whoever else you know is on that committee can come to the uh board meetings or they can provide a report for us that can be read. You know, I just didn't want to lose sight of that.

Okay. Um I think um we have carries on the capital campaign, so maybe you could be responsible for that agenda item if there are any updates. Sure. And and I mean I don't mean right now. I don't mean now. I just mean for future. Yeah. Um sure. I um I'm happy to do it in the future. And I think really the biggest update um that we have for the capital campaign is the um the you know the funding for um the replacement floor um that you know that and then also um the table was also ordered for the friends as well, right? Um I haven't heard that it's come in yet. No, it hasn't. I'll check the status on that.

Actually, that's a good question. Yeah. So, one of the friends tables in the um friend's corner was damaged and the capital campaign paid for the replacement, which you'd think would be small thing, but it's amazing how expensive those things are. It is. Yes. Okay, great. Thank you. So, we'll we'll keep that on the agenda, Kim. Yes. And that'll be Carrie. Yep. Okay.

Um, next on the agenda is the CW Mars agreement. I think this is just really a FYI, right? um that one of the things that we had Tom do before is to sign off on the CW Mars agreement. It's essentially the annual renewal. Um we obviously as a library value our relationship with CW Mars and this is just signing off on that each year. Um HDMI outlet repair. Did you have a funding request for that?

Yes. Okay, I do. So, the HDMI outlet is in the community room. There are four of them. One of them is not working. We had uh Renard come out and look at it. The electricians, it was beyond their scope. So, we had our AV audiovisisual company come out and they determined that it was um it needed to be replaced. So, here is what it is. Here's the breakdown. Parts delivered with shipping is $345. Diagnosis and testing labor from 77 when they come out initially is $525. Replacement and testing labor $270. The grand total is $1,140 to repair the system.

Repair the system or repair one port. That Yeah, that one little outlet. Imagine. Yeah. Um, and can you remind me remind us is the um does that make that room unavailable for video conferencing or is there a second port that you can kind of plug into to get? There are additional ports, but this seems to be the most popular one. It's as you walk into the far right. It's the one that most people use. Okay. Um Bob Burgerer actually was the one that brought it to our attention that it wasn't working. So, so who's the vendor and where are they located?

Uh, CIVT Solutions. I believe they're out of Paddleboro. All right. So, that that could partially make sense where we've we've been trying to do our best to sort of rein in the local of some of these vendors and that the farther out they are um that kind of just ends up being part of the bill. Yes. the travel, the truck fee and all that, right? So, he I told him that we have a meeting tonight and that I would get back to him as far as if we can proceed or not. So, um to move forward with that. And do we owe the 525 anyway because they came out. So, we're like in halfway anyway.

Yes. At least we need it, right? What was the total amount? 1140. 1,140. I make a motion um to fund 11 $1,140 um for uh the HDMI um diagnostic and outlet repair. And what was the funding source? Um do we want to do state aid for that? Do the lead? It's really It's really not a lead. Well, is anything building related technically leads or no? Uh probably not. I don't not that no that's like a component state aid would probably be the or the capital campaign

but we would first need capital campaigns okay that they would be giving it yeah I mean to be made available in other words we can't speak on behalf of the capital campaign although two of the members are here so what would be the harm in estate aid for this. It's only $1,100. So, I don't know why we're Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Motion made and seconded. Any discussion?

Yeah. One question. So, we probably have many more HDMI ports in town. Is there some kind of overall process or access to some service that um we should also ask? not stopping this funding, but also this might not be the only port that might go down. So that might You did say that this was no longer being made. Oh, but I'm also I would imagine just right those were all put in as part of the building project and that they're not necessarily the same that's in other buildings if that's what you're applying. Yeah,

they're probably all different, I'm guessing. Okay, we'll solve for this. But I think there should be a better way of handling uh HDMI ports and AV connections and so on and so forth then. Well, did they have another recommendation? Like they didn't suggest like installing something different, right? They just No, he didn't offer anything. I mean, you reached out to the town department, you know, they looked at it and then this is what their recommendation was. Yeah, it was from what I recall it's just a replacement of that model that was in there. They just found a this the one that replaced it. Just that one wasn't. So she went through the count.

Maybe we can like I think to your point though like I don't think it makes punch list, right? But when we get a new director as we talk about future building maintenance and upgrades, we maybe just need some plan for like our AV, right? Like if stuff is going out and it's going to be really expensive, like we should just understand is it cheaper to just keep fixing it like at some point like like when does is that kind of what you're getting? Right. Right. Right. Yeah. So we can Yeah. I think it's a good thing to put on our road. The IT guy thinking about what should I budget and how do I keep the Yeah. Okay. Um so motion made and seconded. Um uh all those in favor I

opposed. I declare the motion carried. Thank you. Um, funding request for library tech supplies. That's what we already talked about. Yep. Um, library stats. Oh, I do have that for Yes. Was that in the packet that you sent? No, actually I didn't have it at the time, but um this is for the month of June. Adult circulation was 4,460. Children's 8,097, young adult, 1593, and the total circulation 14,140 for the month of June. New patrons 107.

Wow. Total books and audio 3,215 and total hoopla 394. Oh, great.

That's great. That's especially 100 new. That's awesome. All right. Any questions on the stats? If not, we'll move on to strategic plan with Aaron. Um, trying to find the email response. Um, oh, here it is. So I asked the question of the um the facilitator uh whether we should continue uh with the project or if we should you know wait um because uh we don't have a director and you know I think they were leaning towards yeah maybe you should wait but I I really posed that question you know can we do this without a director and the the response was interesting because if we want to do it without a director, it's really an opportunity, okay, to kind of shape the the vision of the next, you know, five years for the library so that that director coming in has, you know, kind of a clear path uh forward. Whereas coming in and not having really any anything defined can be kind of difficult and overwhelming for somebody um you know, coming in into town. So, um I guess if I had to choose one way or the other, um again, this was something that I was stepping away from. So, somebody else would have to pick it up. Um I would I would choose to wait if we could. Um if we all agree to to wait on that. Um we do have an opportunity with this this person. Um um but I think it would take a lot of effort on our part to drive this in the absence of a director. And I don't know that we have that bandwidth.

I know Erin, you kindly copied me on that request. And um and I recall she said like if if it it was going to be the new director, you she would recommend that the person have like a year under their belt at least before kind of jumping into doing a strategic plan. And that was kind of my gut feel, you know, that that would make sense, you know, for them to, you know, kind of come assess the situation, understand operations, and then kind of come back. But um I think bandwidth wise like with you know this the search I think that would be difficult to start without you know with everything else that we have on our plate personally. Yeah, I think that's my initial concern is just the bandwidth and I think the ability or the the the desire to have the trustees involved in that strategic planning should occur, you know, if we're without a director, but it should still occur even if we have the director because we're going to be closely involved with working with that person.

Yeah. And I see Doug, you were CCed on that as well. Yes, I was. Yeah. any other comments or questions for doing that because that was helpful to get that feedback.

I mean, it's a really important endeavor that we need to go through. It's just I think um really as a board determining when the right time is to start that. Okay. Any other comments or questions? Thank you for doing that. I think um I mean the the person I think that that contacting that person was a good um a good person to I don't know how I'm trying to explain myself. She seemed like somebody we'd like to work with. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. Yeah. So, thank you for finding her.

So, I don't think it was a wasted effort. I think that person is great and we learned a lot in the process as well. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Um, next was Rachel with the board support model. I know we we kind of went through that um before. Was there anything additional you wanted to add or should we try to identify people that would be available for those?

Well, and I guess are those the right groups? And then the other piece too is I know every Wednesday we need two trustees to sign the bills. It was really helpful for me to learn that's every Wednesday after 3:00, right? So, I I just think if there's a way we could like set up a schedule for people to sign up ahead, I think it just takes all the pressure off of everyone to say, "Oh, no, we haven't signed the bills this week." Um, so I think just making sure of people to sign them. Um, and then I know the other thing Kim had mentioned before is like if there's any way we have like like office hours or something like if if we can rotate maybe through once a week who's there during like general hours just so people could ask questions. I don't know if that's helpful as well. Um, just wanted to figure out how we wanted to be organized to be there, not only via email, but but to support them all and whatever they need.

So, I I mean, I agree it's important to have um trustees presence at the library throughout the day or throughout the week. So, I would encourage everyone to be going there regularly um checking in. But um do we feel like it should be something that we have a specific time slot? Is that what you're proposing? Like a or if we do if we can like let them know we'll be there and they're if they need something, right? Because I think sometimes people go with their families and you're distracted, right? But someone's like, "Hey, I'll be there for this like hour." Like we could communicate it to the library staff, too. So they also know because maybe they'll rearrange their day differently or or send you a note in advance. Um

I I think that's a great idea. Um do you want to work out a schedule? Um, and then with some slots or or maybe we communicate to Rachel when we could be available throughout the week and just commit to it. I think that's a great idea. It accomplishes both what you're looking for is just to make sure we're going to the library being available. But to Rachel's point, we're probably going there for personal reasons, not always just to be available.

Right. So do is there a space where I'm not worked in the library not as I go to Starbucks or some other place when I need some quiet time and I not on calls and stuff. Is there a place in the library where I can go sit down and can be available but I can also do my work and lots of spaces. You can reserve conference rooms. We can reserve conference. You can reserve a conference room. There's study smaller study rooms which are like two or three people and there is Wi-Fi. Oh yeah. Okay. Yep. And then there's all the adult um what is it along that back wall there's a whole bunch of tables along the windows. I mean it's it's more out in the open but there's a lot of spaces. Okay. But that's a good idea. I mean if Rachel if you can kind of help coordinate that but

you could just say I'm going to be there between 5 and 6. I'll be working but you know I'm available for and Kim would you help me figure out how to then distribute it? I can combine my quiet time with my library presence and check bucket list done. There you go. Yeah. And then I guess around like I guess Doug it's more of a question for you. Do you feel like you are good as all the finance building HR questions come up? You want those all going to you? I know Chris has mentioned before like he's happy to lean into anything like building like do we we kind of want to give a couple other people. I I just know a lot will be coming at us the next couple months even with an interim director.

Yeah. I you know I I like the idea of um a like I don't know not necessarily chain of command but I think it's important to have maybe one point of contact so that they all know to go to one person. I think it might be too confusing if you go to this person for this this person but for me it would be extremely helpful to have other people helping out and maybe I should just be more diligent in soliciting for support. Yeah, I think that and just handing stuff off to like Chris for example. Well, I'll just, you know, I'll just forward it to Chris and say he'll take care of it. Yeah. And I want to caution people if we're going to hold office hours, we're not decision makers in a vacuum, right?

You know, we're here to be a sounding board, pun intended, you know, to talk talk with them, hear their concerns, and bring them to the larger committee if it needs to come to us. Y and I do feel like we got that gent through the agenda really much faster than I anticipated. So that was my other thing like there was a lot and just making sure Yeah, we could. So I think that sounds like a great approach. So, it sounds like we'll do like office hours. I'll coordinate so we can communicate that out and then Doug, you'll just delegate as stuff comes up and you'll be the main contact. Y perfect.

So, as far as the check signing, um, so Rachel, you you're willing to do the check signing and then I work from home on Wednesday, so I can, you know, and maybe I could do like a Wednesday office hour or something. Yeah, I can just maybe make sure we have two people on Wednesday on that schedule, too. will say you're also responsible for signing checks if you're there. And I think Kim, you usually work late those days, too. So, it's a good day if Kim's going through it to do. Isn't it Tuesday, though? No, it has to be signed by Thursday. Thursday by by 3:00. Yeah. So, she said normally she does it on Wednesday and it's ready by 3:00 on Wednesday to be signed anytime after. Her name is Elaine, right?

I thought I knew I got that. So, you talk it's 9:00. Do we need to have a motion to extend the meeting? No, I think I think as long as people don't have a limit of another 15 minutes, I think we can wrap it up in 15 minutes. Okay. Yeah. And I don't think I don't think we mentioned or discussed after you commence the meeting or call the meeting to order that we spoke of a limit. Did we? We did not. No, we did not. No, no, no. um we don't want to short change a discussion that might require more right discussion like the library parking lot right and I'll try to make that because I don't think it's a

the highest priority right now but it's something that I think needs to be brought to our attention or you know to to be and maybe even tabled for more in-depth discussion later right just food for thought and we can come back to it but I think so the executive session um was was kind of like just in case we don't we're not going to need that. Um other otherwise I think the we do have the exit interview feedback for executive session.

Yeah. Um I did have a question because I I thought we were going to talk about the interim director because I know you said you had some candidates. We had a question previously about whether somebody who's the interim director could then be considered for the permanent position. Have we decided on that or clarified that? It's a good question. Um, I did check with the town and there's no restriction on that. So, if the board wants to consider an interim director as a permanent, it's it's our purview. Okay. Okay. That's good news.

And and to and Mr. Chair for uh to Rachel's comment uh it's my understanding from the open meeting law that the specific purposes for executive session do need to be outlined in the agenda and the only reason listed on this agenda is to discuss potential candidates for the library director position not to discuss the feedback from the exit interview. Oh, I thought it was the opposite that you don't have to list it. That's what I Okay, I misunderstood. Oh, I misunderstood you. Okay. So, um is this but I think um but it's not on the agenda anyway. Oh, it is on the agenda. Is it? The executive session is on Oh, you just have to list your No, no, no. Not the executive session, but the um

the um the the exit interview. The exit interview is not listed on our agenda. I think could reasonably fit or squeeze into something else. Well, I think would you be open to doing that next meeting? Um because certainly we're not going to be hiring a permanent director by next meeting. But but so it'll be good feedback for um obviously it'll be good feedback for the interim director as well, but I think we'll still be very early in the stages of the interim director, but but I guess couldn't we consider the feedback from the exit interview as part of what we would discuss in an executive session for discussing potential candidates for things that we would want to consider going into that process?

Yeah. Yeah. I'm just worried about the time. That's fair. Why don't we just move through the other um items on the agenda quickly and and see where we are at that point. Kim, please. Y um so getting back to the parking, there is a question that I have. Well, that's what that's what I'm going to go next. Okay, perfect. So, thank you. Um there were no other questions for Rachel for the um board support model for director transition. We'll move on to the library parking lot

and and you Mr. here. I'll I'll I'll uh just make a comment that I I I think in proper order I will absolutely get to the issue of the potential overflow of that. But leading into this from my opening comments, um, so I I I think there's been a false narrative perpetuated throughout town and among uh various individuals that we somehow don't have any authority over our own parking lot or what we understand and the community understands to be the library parking lot. And one of the things um that has been overlooked is that none of this discussion as I understand it has acknowledged our town charter and and what I did is I I did a hand out of of section 3-7 of our town charter which is page 21 section B powers and duties of the board of library trustees. Um I'm going to point to the first and last sentences. uh the board of library trustees shall have the custody and management of the public library and all property of the town related to said library. And then the last sentence says the board shall have all other all of the other powers and duties which are given to boards of library trustees by general law, by this charter, by bylaw or by other town meeting vote. And so, um, aside from this, um, well, actually getting back to this, uh, of all property of the town related to said library, I I I I think on a general understanding would would, uh, lead the average person to conclude that an adjacent parking lot to a library with no other municipal buildings nearby is

part of um, that which is related to the library just like the the whole exterior of the gardens that we um you know manage and and the shrubbery and and the walkways and everything like that. Um a as as an aside but somehow related um there's also a handout uh internally from the library on 721 to which was attached the MBLC art uh the trustees 2016 2017 construction grant round application which um at least from us it's not affirmatively signed off by the uh my understanding of town administrators but uh town administrator's office, but at least by us, we were saying that the parking plan included um 81 spaces and that 100% of the spaces of that contiguous paved area basically were for library use. Um whether we use all of those spaces most of the time or um you know, I know that during busy times, yeah, it gets packed. Um but to say that we have no authority over it I think is a stretch. Um I think also potentially leading to some ambiguity is and I attached it to um my handout on the town charter is an overhead of the town GIS map and you have these overlapping parcels which uh parcel 91 is what's called 35 Grafton common and before the renovation of the library the entirety of the parking lot as I understand it was within the meets and bounds of 35 Grafton Common. Since the expansion, the footprint of the library and parking

lot that is used by people that consider it to be the library parking lot, um includes uh parcel 90, which is a third of an acre that is adjacent to the main entrance. and then the 11 and 1/2 acre lot behind um all of the main spaces that then uh goes into what is now labeled as the Eagle Trail. So this is 89. This is this big Pardon? It's 89. It's number 89 on here. This thing here 89. Yeah. What did I call it? Well, you just said 11.6, but it's No, 11.6 acres, right? But it's But it's the one that says 89. It's a huge one,

right? That's what I'm saying. In other words, behind all of the lot and actually part of the lot um includes that parcel. In other words, that that parcel goes all the way to Upton Street. And so this 35 Grafton common, which is a the library um in blue, the third of an acre is actually um town of Grafton is listed. Okay, that's listed as four Upton Street. And then also listed as frontage closest to the railroad tracks is at parcel 89 of 11 12 acres, this listed as six Upton Street. So although within the blue the confines of the blue dots are these things that look like parking lines, there's a good portion of the the extension of that that is also parking. Okay. And so, um, I don't know if this is a gray area where, you know, we we went for a grant. The grant paid for an expansion of the library, including the parking lot. And it's my understanding from recent discussions that the MBLC is now saying, well, we're not going to um hold you to having it used by anyone else. Um, however, I I I think there would be a a reasonable compromise there that if the entirety of the paved area um may not be used all of the time by the library, certainly I I feel strongly that there's a certain number of spaces that would be reasonably delegated for library use, even if you color those lines a different color. Um and um and then since the time of the expansion, we've basically that if we were to somehow assert that that the entirety of

that lot was under our jurisdiction, it's landlocking the public who would want to use the Eagle Trail because that Eagle Trail as a passive recreational act active recreational area didn't exist when we first opened the library. And so um long and short is is that I I think that although there's a um there could be a sort of shared an understanding that this may be a shared space um maybe with the understanding that at all times those back spaces are not all a lot of them are empty but but this but we've been sort of told that that's a municipal lot. I I patently disagree. Um at least to the extent that um the amount of spaces that were in the grant application basically said that all right, you know, we're expanding this whole footprint to include parking.

So So can sorry can we just take a little bit of a step back and I know I threw a lot of stuff at you. Well, I'm just like what is the impetus for this discussion? The impetus for this discussion is I think that the town there's I think there's some friction between the the the town administration and the board of library trustees and that we're being told and we we were actually told during one of our recent meetings that the whole parking um policy was basically totally wrong. Right. And I'm saying it's totally right. Okay. It is. It was written in response to how we initially had designed the lot, right? And so this

the you know the one with Doug's signature on it I think like you said it was a grant application and this is what we this is what we wanted. Right. And the NDLC will tell you we'll support whatever you want. Right. Right. That's what the current director wanted. Right. And they're very staunchly you know um this is what I want. So um but I understand that if it's a municipal building right right um then others can can park there it's not a priv private lot it's a public lot municipal building so but for the purposes people park there to b the primary purpose is to use the library now yes

I I think with the understanding that um for the most part um there's very little overlap between the library hours and the sort of off hours that it may be used um Except for things like today like when we have like when we have um farmers market the farmers market that's a a big conflict right and and and so so to to the Kim's point if you could just speak briefly to an upcoming event where there's going to be some conflict with in competing yes on July 30th it is a Wednesday

and there's the farmers market and there's a wing master children's program I think from 2 to 3 which is right at the same time that the farmers market is. So, I brought it to Sarah's attention, but you said it was a grant. They can't change it. So, what do we do? I mean, there's people coming in with birds of prey, right? And they're going to need to park and um people coming to it's pretty popular. Where are they going to park? You know, so it gets tricky and and Sarah was the one that actually found that information. Um, but so who who um who said they communicated with the MBLC and the NBLC said it's fine to do whatever you want with the parking lot?

Yeah. A lot of this was coming from Tom because he was the one who was managing a lot of the friction and the contot, right? And um and I think that's why he he and Mary took that particular policy off the website. It says this is completely wrong and it's illegal. You can't do this. That was Tom's stance, right? Again, he's not here, right? But that's the way it was communicated and that's where we are today. And and and Tom I in my opinion was acting absolutely above board in good good faith with his understanding of what was being told to him. What I think gets lost in the weeds is that who who's going to dig into the details of our town charter? I did

and it clearly says that the trustee shall have the custody and management of the public library and of all property of the town related to said library. I don't I mean everyone looks upon that as a library parking lot. If you talked about the municipal lot on the common, people would look at you like, you know, and say, "What are you what are you talking about?" Oh, the library parking lot. Yeah, the library parking lot. I know Sarah mentioned too, she said that, you know, we want to be good neighbors, too. And when there's not a program going on, it shouldn't be a problem. No, not at all. Park over there, but when there is a program going on, it

Well, and I believe there's been cases where staff has come in and there's no spots for the staff as well, which is of course an issue. the the program that's happening. Well, just any program, but specifically the one that's this month. Do we ever know how many people are going to come, Cindy? Like, can we can we can we reserve like 20 spots for this program and then open up the rest of the library? I don't know if I have 20 cones, but yeah. Well, well, just just an idea like can we think about reserving part of it for the library to make sure we have enough spaces? Yeah. to kind of as a compromise.

But I guess my concern is like we don't like in Grafton we don't have like lots where we like enforce like who can park there or not. And I'm concerned about like what if there's a conflict like what if somebody gets angry and moves the home you know like I want to make sure that our staff like our staff are not like you know parking you know attendance you know that's what I'm kind of nervous about is that um like like you I agree

but I think the opposite is true Carrie is that um that I I couldn't just meet my friends and go on a bus trip and we all park at the DPW or the fire station and you know um you know station one uh on on Upton Street or or you know just a bunch of us just park at the police station parking lot. I I think that there's some reasonable there's some reasonable jurisdiction that that um but that I mean you know whether it's a combination of the department heads like the police chief and fire chief along with the town administrator there's no there's nothing in the charter that basically says that that department is in charge of that lot but I think the town could say well it's reasonably understood that that's for the purpose for which that building is there for the the the police station parking lot isn't there for the school and vice versa. And so um and and so it's related to the function absent any other buildings that are nearby that would be used for another purpose, town purpose. Um I don't see where that where that lot um couldn't be interpreted as for library use. But then we would use the cones to do the designation because I think in the past we've tried to do other things like have like a rope right across and I think that

how do you know that someone's coming here for the program? You don't and somebody could move their phone and say I'm here for the program and then take off. So unless you so really kind of move the discussion but also to understand like wrap up everything everybody said. I think what we need to decide is what do we want, right? Because we can go either way. And I don't think we've stated as a board how we we can just let things kind of happen naturally. I think that's how we've been doing it. We we had a policy. It's been taken down, right?

You know, so we need to decide as a board whether we want to enforce that policy or kind of let things happen naturally, which it doesn't seem like it works out well for the patrons. and we're advocates for the community in regards to library, right? So, I think we need to decide that if we want to advocate for the patrons, then we need to make sure that there's a place for them to park during library hours and also for the staff, too, because, you know, the staff needs to be able to get lunch and come back and and and and I I'm okay with just ending the discussion, but I I think it's an important thing that we need to to iron out

um with the understanding and and and I know that the town administrator and assistant town administrator, various select board members have individually, collectively said the opposite that they they believe, hey, anyone can park here. Trustees have no jurisdiction over this. I feel the opposite. And so, I think we need to to iron this out about I mean, we don't need to have jurisdiction over it all of the time when it's not needed. You know, there's plenty of spaces most of the time for people to park for the library and to go to other functions that are not library related. Um that's what I was trying to get out is like

but but I think but I don't want to give up what I believe is our authority over that lot. It's in the it's in the charter. Yeah. based on what you pointed out and what I understood and what you explained Roger I think there's very good research in terms of what what seems to be the facts right um to me the next step is how do we implement this and how do we what are the next steps beyond that in between is do we get any from the town council do we get an advice from the town council to say here is what is there it is in black and white here is what it says

what do you advise and then bring in the town council and it's within the town and then then that leads to okay if the town council says it's black and white it's clear roger great job fantastic now this is how we are going to implement and if we say it's 75 lots is what we need to draw for uh all things for the library patrons we put that aside and everything else is game these 75 at any point of time first reference first steps go to the library patron so just one thing so the policy was originally implemented March 22n in 2023. So that did go through legal review then, right? I would assume so. Yeah. So it it did already go through legal.

So then for next steps um Roger, would you um take on the responsibility of communicating that with the town administrator? Yeah, just to just to that we need some clarification um in light of the town charter and and the expansion of the library and and lot lines too and and that you know I'm not looking to pick a fight here because you know we're looking to be good neighbors too, but when when patrons and staff members can't get into their own building to the park, that's that's my biggest concern is for the big programs or for the staff not having a parking spot, right? I think any any department in town would not be happy with that in their own building. Right.

Just to throw a little bit of a devil's advocate here. So sure, I would say the community is all our patron, right? So whether they're coming for the farmers market, the library, those are a lot of the same people who might be doing both. And so I I guess my question before we figure out really who who gets to have say over the library parking lot like what's the problem we're trying to solve, right? Because if we know it's a hight traffic day, people are mostly going to be going to the farmers market anyway, right?

Should we just next time try not to put an event that day? Right? There's I I don't know how often this is happening. If it happens twice a year, right? like like then we might have like bigger fish to fry. No, you're right. And we and as a board we've we've even talked about maybe closing early on some of the nights where there were concerts. And so um you know it's not an absolute type of thing where you know we're just saying this is ours for the sake of it being ours but and and I absolutely understand that when people park up there they're going all over the place. You know they're going all over the place. But it's got to be the Wednesday that's the big issue. the farmers market because there aren't and and then obviously like the some of the big town events but

I I just don't like being told as a board that our just being told that sorry board of libraries you know this is this is municipal law without any explanation or putting into the context of the grant application or even our town charter just just by edict it's no

so what I would I would propose is that Tom sorry Roger um just follows up yeah some of the legal aspects. Um, and then maybe someone else on the board once we like maybe talks to the four, whatever we're calling them now, leadership team and just ask them for their major concerns, you know, can we reschedule, can we not schedule things on Wednesdays when we know there's like the farmers market or

and they have done that already. I think they've rearranged, but I think the immediate concern and I'm sorry, but like this next week they have this program this the birds of prey the July. So this is the immediate thing that we do need to address because they're going to be coming with you know I'm sure like a truck and you know they're going to need to unload they need to have proximity. So I guess are we okay with Sorry, I'm gonna actually dovetail off of what you just said. Right. So, I'm looking at the parking policy. I think what we can do is, you know, it says very clearly in the parking policy that was taken down.

Um, a parking lot attendant um may be designated to oversee library parking during library town events, right? And then non library visitors may be directed to the free municipal parking around the comment. Right. I I would I would be on board with um making sure that we have space for the event. Agree. That's what the policy says. Not not not I'm not talking about all the attendees of the event. I'm talking about the event like the truck with the truck like right the people that are bringing in the equipment and stuff like that. We need to obviously make sure they have close parking,

but without knowing how many people are going to come, you know, you can't you going to set five parking spots or 10, but at least for the But is it a program that people like made reservations to attend or is it a drop in? It's a So, it's reserved and I think it's very popular. I think it's almost full at I think it was like 70 to 80 people. That's adults and kids. So, yeah. So you wouldn't need 70 spots but it would be quite a few. So what I was proposing is we have a policy like you said it's gone through legal. Um the previous director felt that it was violated some or was illegal or something. He used illegal and that's why he decided to take it down. Right.

I think we should decide tonight if we want to post repost this up on the website um as one of our you know first policies. It's too too since it was previously approved. I mean it's one of the it's not from 2018. It's from it was March 2023 was the date on it and the and the practice of the committee was that these policies go you know have a legal review. So

it was uh approved in 2019 revised 2021 and 2023. So, this is one that we've been on top of. Um, and it probably needs another revision, but I think as it stands, um, we may want to have it. Um, so that if we do need to manage some of the parking spaces, we have a policy that backs us up. Doug, I did want to let you know, um, Kim just showed me that Sarah's actually on the phone and it's a program and she did her hand up, so I don't know if we did want to like any other information. We're getting close to public. Yeah, sure. I I'm I'm yeah I I I thought this was going to be a short discussion that I because of the the program that we really

um yeah I'll agree to have the public comment now if you can make that happen. Yeah. So Sarah she's trying to unmute. Can you turn on the screen? Yeah. Press ask to unmute. So if you unmute yourself Sarah I think we should be able to I can't turn that or you can put something in the chat and we can read. Right. That's what I asked. How does the screen go on? That would be the town paper. Dan, I I've got it. Look at me. Web web web. Hi. Can you hear me? I can Sarah.

Oh, hi. Um, so we do have uh registration for this event. Um, it starts at 2. Uh, and that typically isn't when the lot is super full with with the uh farmers market um patrons using it. Uh, my biggest concern is making sure that, as you spoke about briefly, the van that would have all of the birds would have a closed space so that they weren't having to, heaven forbid, cross the street to try to get to the building. So, I'd try to get them something close so they could access maybe the side door that we have propped open just for the ease of loading and unloading and the safety of the birds. Um, but I I am hopeful that we will do okay with parking since it is an earlier program and the farmers market does tend to pick up a bit more later in the day, which is why staff run into problems when we do the shift later in the evening for maybe the people who might work 5 to 8 coming in or 4 to 8. So, I'm hopeful that it won't be problematic, but I but I do think moving forward trying that we can be more mindful about um activities on the common the problem. So, this is standing, but sometimes they pop up and it's not a regular occurrence. So, we might not be aware when so this grant was written a year ago and we booked it. So, we'll know the farmers market's on Wednesdays, but if it's something that's more of a oneoff or they move when a big concert might be, that would be a little bit more tricky to kind of work around, especially if we have to hire an outside presenter.

And um how long is the event? One hour, two to three. Correct. So, I mean, I I think that's encouraging because I I don't think the farmers market's going to be that busy then. But, you know, of course, 70 80 people, that's a lot of people if they all come in a car. Um, but I would be in favor of of them blocking off a couple spaces for this van. Yeah. The policy would um would support that, right? So, yeah, repost the policy. I mean, it wasn't taken down because of legal reasons. It was

it was taken down because of concerns because some of the concerns but we never took it down. Correct. Correct. So So it's it's within our right to put it all back up if we want to. That that was the um that was the uh discussion that I had with the previous director. Well, and I think regardless whether it's post or not, it sounds like Sarah has the ability to block off a couple partic re get it back up on the website.

Should we do a motion to do that or because we never made a motion to take it down, we can just repost it. um probably feel comfortable if we did a motion to that that board still supports the current policy, I guess. So, just I I'll make a motion to um repost the U parking policy last revised on March 22nd, 2023. I second. Motion made and seconded. Any additional discussion? Uh hearing none. All in favor? opposed. I declare the motion carried. All right. So, is that when would that go back up? Tomorrow.

All right. So, then what I would do is I would include that in my documents um you know with town and then we can um Roger can have his discussions with town administrator and then we can um discuss next month. Y good. Okay. Thank you everyone. Um,

oh, this library parking lot. Uh, other business. We already talked about the Did we already talk about the Ford signatures? Yeah. Um, nope. They're right over here. I have the form. Oh, sorry. That's that that's not the Yeah. So, yeah, you can circulate that and get the signatures. Um, were there changes to the proposed meeting dates for 2026 or was this just a confirmation? Um, I used this uh standing what is it?

Okay, Wednesday. So, our um meeting next month is August 27th at 7 p.m. Um if there are no major issues with that, I would say let's now that we've circulated the proposed meeting dates, if everyone can take a look at it and if there's any red flags, you know, one's on a holiday or something, um we can talk about that and approve the um dates next month. Um, professional staff development day. Was that the launch? That's the 21st of August.

Who who was that? Who was that agenda from? Like what are we talking about for that? I just added that because I don't know if it's going to be offsite. I don't know what's been determined. I have no um Yep. Um, oh, if the board there's a date if the committee's you you're trying to get the if the committee's in favor, what I would um suggest is that the leadership team of four um discusses options for that day and then comes back to us and if we have to have I mean if we just need to contribute we can contribute but if we need to make a decision as a board we're going to have to come up with another ad hoc meeting.

Okay. So we can I can reach out to you. Okay. Thank you. I know when we talked about it last month or maybe even two months ago now at this point the thought was that it's a good opportunity to have the trustees have lunch or something like that. So I still think that's an option but um I would say let's push it back to the leadership team and see if there's new ideas. Very good. I'll check with them. Thank you. the So, I'm I'm torn about the executive session because I'm not 100% sure if that had to be defined in there. I didn't think it did, but

No, I think you just had to say you're going to executive session. You don't necessarily have to post the agenda was is how I had read it. I mean, that's how we've always had it. We've always just had it as like the last. So, so is this related to discussing potential candidates for the library director position or was it to discuss Are you saying that the feedback from the exit interview is necessarily related to part of this process? I guess I'm saying outside. My understanding is you can go into executive session. You only have to list executive session on the agenda. You don't have to say the purpose of the executive session on the agenda. Oh, okay. that as long as you're doing it for one of the the allotted purposes.

And do we feel like um that that's something that we need to address tonight or can we talk about it next month or if we were to defer it, I would defer it till next week if we do Well, I guess I would I would just not to wait too long because I think there's things that can help us better support the transition in the meantime as well too. Um so we can make it pretty pathy, five, 10 minutes. Um, but I think just making sure everyone is hears it will be healthy. So, um, now I'm really curious. All right. Um, yeah, I mean I I think we would want to make it if we went into executive session to make it the last item so that

correct we would then uh reconvene only for the purposes of adjourning the main meeting. Then the um the rest of the people can leave. So I don't think the next I mean the the only thing left in the agenda is just the standard next meeting. So I think um public comment is there any other public? Yeah. Is there any other public comment? Is the um there's there's two people in there or is that is that the bird is the bird one? Yeah, that's Sarah and then Alice. Alison. It says Alison.

Um all right. So no public input then. Um then the last question would be if people have any time schedule limitations that they can't stay for another 10 minutes and we we can just stick it to 10 minutes. Um no but I would ask that we keep the comments and questions to a minimum just just for the purposes of of you know giving a report to the board. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So then I would entertain a motion to enter executive session.

I I move uh Mr. I move that we enter into executive session per MGL chapter 3A section 21- uh sub parentheses 8 to uh discuss uh items related to uh potential candidates uh for library director position and uh related activities I guess. Yep. Okay. So second motion made and seconded. All in favor? I opposed. Okay. I declare the motion carried. So, I just need to make a statement that says discuss these matters in open session will compromise the town's position and needs to be discussed in executive session. And I think we'll just ask everyone who's online to

Well, that's going to be my next one. So, um we are only going to

for that. I missed that somehow. Thank you. It was part of the 25,000. So, did we vote on that yet? Oh, I'm sorry. We do have to vote. Um, all in favor did we vote? We voted to go into executive session. Did we vote? No. All in favor of going into executive session. opposed to