Latest / Rick Outzen: (we don’t) color on the dog / Library Board Left in the Dark
Transcript
- Rick Outzen: Welcome back. I'm Rick Alson. This is Rick's blog live It's something that we have talked about almost all entire year. We've got two on the Library Board of Governance that West Merino has to bring to the County Commission since January to vote on. have been without a director the library system since August 10th. they still don't have any kind of guideline or any recommendation from Merino, ⁓ hadn't even submitted the names of the people that have asked to be on the board. So we're in this limbo world. Last gosh, over forty-five days ago, I had ⁓ Blaine with us. Dr. Wall is the chairman of the Board of Governors. Thank you so much for coming on. Dr. Blaine Wall: Yeah, I'm glad to be here. Thanks for having me back. Rick Outzen: Yeah, we you came on right after the resignation of Bell Rivera, and ⁓ that time you had sent a letter to county administrator asking for meeting. And why did ask for the meeting? Dr. Blaine Wall: I asked for a meeting for a couple of reasons. He had canceled our regularly scheduled monthly meetings. I think it's important that we're meeting. Our ⁓ our documents that we meet monthly, including the resolution that they passed, the the commissioners passed creating this board. so I wanted us to have a conversation, but also because in that document we are we play a role in selecting a director. So I think it's important that we have conversations about what are the next steps, how will a director be selected. Who's running the library and the interim. on top of things like the budget, we have to have oversight of the budget and ⁓ the deadlines for submitting a budget were were coming close. So there were several reasons that I asked for it, but I never heard a response. Rick Outzen: Yeah, and that has been a pattern. it's been a pattern from from the very beginning after the selection or the the hiring of Crystal Rivera. Y'all as a committee met. The thing that's well, I I tell you what, let's don't let's don't get caught up in that. I mean, I think i it's well documented you know, on the and in a newspaper that the process that was followed the last time there was an opening on the board was the ⁓ opening For the library director, the board was intimately involved with the county administrator Jack Brown at the time. The review, board helped decide the qualifications, screened all the applications, decided who should be called for an interview, narrowed it down, all done in the public eye, and county administrator accepted the board's recommendation. That's how it was done 2015. Here we fast forward. To 2025. And you were strong armed by county administrator when somebody, Lori Nesmith, stood up and tried to press for the process be followed, and they came the meeting with y'all with nothing and weren't going to give you anything. You selected two very qualified candidates. One, like you said, was internal in the system that had been working in the library system. He ignored that and went with Crystal Bell Rivera, who ended up resigning August tenth, a little over six months in the job. but meanwhile, y'all have had trouble you were having you were gonna have trouble making quorum because you're a five member board and you only have three members, right? Dr. Blaine Wall: That's right. so there were announcements in local media at end of 2025 saying that there were openings and that applicants should be sent to the director, at the time interim director Crystal Bel Rivera. I saw on the blog that you had published those applicants who met that deadline and who wanted to serve on the board. typically those are sent to the commissioners pretty quickly and a decision is made. ⁓ So that when someone's term on the board expires at the very next meeting, there's a replacement, so that we're not in danger of losing a quorum. but that has not happened. There has been no consideration. As as I know, the names have never made it to the commissioners. I don't know if they've seen the applicants. You know, perhaps if they check out your blog they'll they'll that's the place to find that's where I'm finding a lot of my information. Yes, because we're not being told anything or given ⁓ Rick Outzen: You look at it and it's a pretty good selection of those five that that asked, one was a member that you served with, has served who's eligible for another term, John Bullock. You look at at the background of all the candidates, some have ⁓ you know, one has library experience, which is helpful, could be helpful, the others have a lot of community experience. I last week when I saw that y'all's meeting was canceled for September. another meeting being canceled, went ahead and said, I f I went to my readers and said, ⁓ on, if interested in being a part of this, go ahead and and put your name in. So I asked them if they sent our application in, go ahead and send it to me. We got three more names of people that said they're interested, but we don't if there's an application process now or not. what's going on far as the management of the library? Have you met with the interim library director? Dr. Blaine Wall: So Crystal Bel Rivera, when she was there, she would send out weekly updates to the board members giving us statistical information on usage, main events or major events that had happened that week, if there was summer reading event or what have you. But when she left, those reports stopped coming. And so we've heard nothing from anyone in library management since she departed. ⁓ We've not notified of her departure, we've not been notified who the acting director is. or if there's a process to replace the director. In fact, we weren't even notified ⁓ the meeting scheduled for this Monday was canceled. ⁓ found that out through the press. I I heard from you and from the news journal and but you know Right. So so I the same I heard from people saying, you know, what about this? And I would not have known about that except for the local press and the work that you're doing. Rick Outzen: Well, you look at this, Blaine, ⁓ there a listening to the county commission meeting last week, and citizens, one after another, up for the need for governance board, stood up for the importance of libraries. and they were very civil, but they were very direct. there seemed to be among some of the from West Marino, the county administrator, and of the commissioners, some sort of thought ⁓ of Well let's just do away with the Board of Governance. do you think that's a bad idea? Dr. Blaine Wall: I think it's a bad idea for a lot of reasons. First of all, it was created for a reason. Before the Board of Governance, there was an advisory board, which apparently was not meeting the needs, right? There was a reason they moved from an advisory board to a governance board. but there is a special tax that's collected that helps to fund our libraries. And money from both the city and the county is collected and trust and entrusted with the county officials to operate the library system. So at the time they they had this new library system that they created. They said it's important to have representatives from both areas their insight and oversight of the library system to make sure that taxpayer dollars are being used wisely and the library is meeting the needs of the community. So I think that's still an urgent issue. I keep hearing from the county administrator that the board is not doing the job that's that's been laid out for it, that we're, you know, overreaching and we we've re-written our bylaws and we're doing things that we're that we were never intended to do. I would urge anyone who hasn't looked at the resolution that created the board to go and look at that. I know you have it on your blog with all the founding documents. But much our bylaws are word word what this founding document states, what the resolution states. And it says that, you know, we have a role in recommending a director. It says we shall recommend, not we might Or if the county administrator wants us to, it says we shall recommend director of the library. It says that we shall meet monthly, ⁓ not if the county administrator wants you to meet monthly. ⁓ The place in the document that the county administrator is mentioned is that we make a recommendation to that person for the director. So obviously the choice is with the county administrator according to the document. and as you said, there's past practice that establishes a practice than we've seen recently. Right. But nonetheless, it it's all spelled out there. There's nothing saying that the the county administrator is the person who decides when we meet. It also in that resolution that the chair can call special meetings, which I've attempted to do twice, and he's ignored times. Again, it say if county administrator approves, it says the chair has the right to do that. So I just think that, you know, if they're not going to follow this resolution that the board passed and adopted, then they should look at changing it. but that has its own issues come with that, right? Because th there's an interlocal agreement with the city, ⁓ they're tax dollars from the city. So if going to change the structure, I would imagine that would require a talk with city officials as well. Right. Rick Outzen: Right. Well, Blaine, thank you for coming on. ⁓ this is an important issue. All the documents that Blaine referred to, we've set up a page on the blog. It's it's right there the navigation on the right sidebar of the website. You can go and check all that. You can also watch the video ⁓ then administrator George Tuart presented it to the commission and clearly said, ⁓ this is governance board. We don't want to run the library. Yes, it it won't be a department of the county. yes, they will still come under the county. So this is a very, very important issue. It's on the county agenda for Thursday. If you want to find out more about it, follow blog. We'll do the best we can. Blaine, thank you so much for coming up. We'll take a break. We'll be right back. Dr. Blaine Wall: Thank you, Rick. Always good to talk with you. All right.