Library Board of Trustees - Regular Meeting

I have 06:00, and I'm gonna call the meeting to order. This is the Board of Library Trustees special meeting, Tuesday, April 21. The first order of business is the approval of the minutes of our last meeting, which was '4 thirteen twenty six. And if you could put those up, then we have them.

Hold on. Working on it. Hold on a second. Wrong thing. Hold on.

Alright. I'm in a hurry.

There we go.

Alright. I'm good. I can read that.

I'll make a motion to approve.

Second. Is there

a second? Second.

This motion is made and seconded to approve the minutes, I assume, as presented. Is there any discussion? We need to do a roll call vote only because this is a Zoom meeting. So we'll get everybody. Heather?

I have to abstain. I did not attend that meeting.

Great. Thank you. I am a yes. Diane?

Yes.

Sherry? Yes. John? Yes. Ashley?

Yes. Jen? Yes.

Thank you. Public comment. Is there any we have we do have two guests. So if you have a public comment, just let us know, and we'll get to the floor. Okay.

Hearing none, we will move along. All business discussion and possible vote on the approval of a response to the open meeting violation complaint. And I believe Beth sent that complaint to everybody today. Hopefully, you've had a chance to review it. I sent you the the actual complaint back when I first got it as is required by attorney general's office.

I'll make a motion to approve as presented. Second.

The motion's been made and seconded to approve as submitted. Is there any discussion? I do have one thing. I'm not sure how relevant it is. The when I sent the completed document to the board, it was not piggyback onto attorney Corvo's email. It was a separate email, and that email clearly stated that this was not to be debated. So that that is I I I I would think that change may wanna be put in

Yeah. And and, certainly, we wanna be factually accurate.

So

What paragraph needs to be changed?

Well, we would need to to, first of all, shoot down the the motion because we're now making amendments. Let's see. Okay. One, two, three, fourth down. Chair Okalita drafted a response, then emailed the response to legal counsel for review and copied the remaining members of the both. I did not do that. I I sent I sent it to legal counsel at the same time, separate email. The vault was was given a copy.

So instead of so instead, we could say chair Okalita drafted a response, emailed the response to legal counsel for review.

For review, period. Further Okay. A or a under a separate email of the the members of the group were sent was were sent a copy of the document, something along those lines. Review period. I'm not sure if you need to put in a date.

If you have the date, yeah, I couldn't find the email.

That. I find it? No. I'm gonna say it's 04/11, but I wanna make sure. Give me a second.

211?

Excuse me? I'm I'm trying to get the actual date that I sent it to Corvo because it was the same day that I sent it to the to the board. And I can't seem to get oh, no. Let's see.

February 11. Excuse me? Think it's February February 11.

February 11 is correct. Okay. So so so maybe put the yeah.

So do you want me to just change that paragraph to say,

chair Email the you mailed the response to legal counsel for review on 02/11/2026.

And then period.

So on and period. On the same date, a copy was sent to the the entire board via via separate email to the board or just to, you know, to bold members of bold in a separate email. Okay. Well, we've made an amendment. So before we go on, we have to shoot down that original

I'll withdraw my motion.

Okay. Thank you. Can the second withdraw I will withdraw my second. Okay. So can we have another email another

Are there any other changes anyone wants to make?

I don't yeah. Let's make sure everybody's comfortable. As far as we have tonight, we may be jumping out of bounds here. What about the the specific requested actions that we we've been asked to take. I think I think we should at least address them either in the mail or in in the, you know, in the actual response.

I think we've already discussed the fact that we see no relevance of providing all correspondence between Randy and the staff or in this bowl. But then he had absolutely nothing to do with this response. The staff had absolutely nothing to do with the response. Therefore, I don't believe there's any relevance in providing you know, because I think and I sent this before. The one email that I sent to Randy in the time frame that they'd set out was, you know, I'm sorry to inform you, but, you know, Ellie's husband passed away.

So I I really don't, again, see the relevance of that. I don't think we need to provide anything with attorney Corbeau's name on it, and we had that discussion as well. You know? The, you know, the interim panel manager and select board, Mark chair select board chair, Mark Germain. I've replied to that.

I have absolutely nothing from from Mark. I I don't I can't I probably have about five emails in the time that I've known him that he's replied. And most of what I have for Joe Perkins is stuff that I cc'd to the Friends because anything that came from the Friends had both Joe and Mark's name on it. So by by virtue of that, I I've I've cc'd all of them. And I think we've discussed the removal of the publication because if we don't feel that there is an actual violation until we are told there was a violation, we're gonna leave it.

Is that correct? Again, I don't wanna be speaking out of term. And I did make a public statement at our last meeting, so I'm not so sure I need to do that again. I I think it I think to me, one of the things that that bothers me the most is, you know, the complaint, you know, talks about kind of a, you know, our interpretation of of attorney Corbeau's reply. And, you know, we see if there might be a violation.

So you know? And this is kind of a a, you know, situation where it's our interpretation versus their interpretation or, more specifically, I guess, it's my interpretation versus their interpretation. But bottom line, I I I don't see where we can do much of anything else. So I I don't know what the board thinks about doing doing just you know, do we respond to these six items, or do we just do whatever? I I

I don't I don't know that it's necessary to give our opinion on the six requested action items. I mean, we have in here the actions that we're going to take in the future. The the purpose of any action items, I believe, would be, you know, if we violated anything to, you know, mostly gain further knowledge and understanding so that that doesn't happen again. I mean, that's the point of the complaint. Right? It's to say, hey. I think you violated open meeting law. What are you gonna do to make sure it doesn't happen again if you did? And so, you know, that's what I had suggested. Have the open meeting law guide.

It's good to review it even more often than is required of any board member. So we're gonna review that again before the next meeting. I don't know how any of really these other things sort of address the complaint and ensure that Okay. Won't happen again. I don't think there was any allegation that it was done intentionally. I don't believe that it was done intentionally. And really by bringing it back in front of an open meeting, it was more transparent. So, you know, it was kinda tough.

Yeah. Alright. I'm I'm good. With that said, are we are we comfortable with the document as amended? I guess that becomes a question. And if so, I would request a motion. Move to accept the amended document.

Second.

Into it. The motion has been made and seconded to accept it or to I I didn't you're you're I cleared the whole. Move to accept and respond with the document. Okay. That's a better motion. Can you re re second that? Whoever seconded I

I I seconded it. I will re second.

Perfect. So the motion has been made and seconded to use the re document as our response to this open meeting or complaint. I will ask for a roll call. All those in favor. Sherry? Aye. Heather?

Aye.

I'm a Lyman, aye. Diane?

Aye.

John? Aye. Aye. Again, I didn't hear. Ashley? Aye. Jen?

Aye. Thank you.

Okay. The ayes have it. Moving on. Jim, do

you need me to send this just to you or Beth? Or who do I need to send this to? Because I did make the changes that we discussed.

I'm not sure how it has to somehow get to the the AG. It has to go back to the friends with a copy to the AG. And I don't know if the complaint itself has the address that it goes to, but we can figure out. It it it needs to go to the friends. I thought the the reply has to go to the friends.

And I think Okay. Yeah. The the instructions are on the on the open meeting law complaint form. So, you know, the who and the how can be know it has to be sent. We just will figure out exactly how that happens.

Okay. Go with that. Is there any unanticipated business? Is there anything further on this item before we move on? Okay. All all business is done. Unanticipated business. Is there anything that came up in the last few days or a couple days? Hearing none, we'll move. I need a motion to adjourn.

So moved. Second.

Motion's been made and seconded. We're do a roll call. Heather? Aye. Jim. Aye. Diane. Aye. Cherry. Aye. John. Aye. Ashley.

Aye.

Jen. Aye. The ayes have it. It's okay. Thank you, Thank you for whoever came in and then participate or at least listen to us. And good night, everybody. Thank

you. Thank you. Bye. Thank you.