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Citizens who want the appointed board of the Westhampton Library replaced with an elected board are handing out flyers that urge citizens attend the board meeting tomorrow at 9:30 a.m. and push that cause.
Peter Zegler and Sabina Trager stood in front of the library most of yesterday handing out 125 flyers that said, “We the taxpayers need an Elected Library Board!” Another 75 will be handed out today in the same place.
Library director Danielle Waskiewicz yesterday handed them a one page sheet of library rules that bar anyone from “soliciting” on library property and told them to stand a certain distance from the steps of the library.
There is a four-foot area on the sidewalk between the steps and the public part of the sidewalk that is the property of the library. Zegler and Trager were allowed to stand in the public area of the sidewalk that is ouside the four-foot area.
WH Library Is a Non-Profit Corp.
The Westhampton Free Library is an association library meaning it is a 501c/3 non-profit corporation that appoints rather than elects directors. Only about 12% of U.S. libraries have that status.
Critics say the board is five middle-aged Caucasian women headed by Joan Levan, president, and ask, “Where is the diversity in terms of gender, minorities and youth?” The other directors are June Sellin, Karen Andrews, Jennifer Mendelson and Marth-Ann Betjmann.
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Library staffers, angered at the firing of part-time employee Trager, and seeking a voice in library policies, voted to form a union on Aug. 21 by a 31-3 margin.
The library, whose EIN is 11-1672825, had $6,173,031 in net assets as of June 30, 2014. This currently includes nearly $5 million in cash, investments and gifts, say staffers, who wonder why so much cash is being kept.
More Flyers Being Distributed Today
Zegler and Trager will be distributing another 75 flyers today that say the board lacks “accountability, transparency, financial oversight and diversity.”
Failure to have public input on who sits on the board means there is “taxation without representation,” the flyers say.
Zegler and Trager say most of the citizens they have given the flyers to are sympathetic to their cause. “They are knowledgeable, interested and want to help,” the pair said.
Trager attended a recent board meeting and asked the trustees to consider converting to an elected board. The trustees did not reply to her but had library director Danielle Waskiewicz tell Trager that the suggestion would be studied.
Under the “Open Meetings” law of New York State, the public may attend and speak at meetings of civic boards but the board members are not required to respond.
Library Groups Urge Public Discussion
The Public Library Assn. division of the American Library Assn. conducts the annual Gordon M. Conable Award that honors libraries that host public meetings on controversial topics.
The Smithville, Texas library endured “angry” patrons who made the staff “fear for their safety” but they hosted a program anyway on Muslim culture, winning an award of the ALA.
Staffers were also praised for “standing up against censorship” by the Smithville City Council. They won the 2014 Gordon M. Conable Award of the ALA for promoting “diverse points of view” and promoting “community dialog on controversial issues.”
The ALA’s “Muslim Journeys Bookshelf” included 25 books, four DVDs and other materials on the “people, places, history, faith and cultures of Muslims in the U.S. and elsewhere.” A $4,500 grant went to 125 libraries that accepted the materials.
ALA quotes President John F. Kennedy as follows: “Libraries should be open to all—except the censor. We must know all the facts and hear all the alternatives…let us welcome controversial books and authors.”
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The O’Dwyer Co. has delivered legal decisions and other materials to the WHB, Southampton, Quogue and Hampton Bays libraries, asking them to hold public discussions of the issue, but all have refused. The Southampton library agreed to keep on file some of the legal decisions but none of the comments and analyses of www.odwyerpr.com.
Asked if citizens should push the Westhampton Library to host public meetings on controversial topics, Zegler and Trager said the first goal would be to get publicly elected directors. That would require changing the charter and tax status of the library.
Trager Was Fired, Won Benefits
Trager, a 3.5-year part-time employee, was fired by the library on June 23 on charges that she broke confidentiality rules by discussing salaries with fellow workers. She denied the charges and earlier this month won the right to receive unemployment benefits after the library had contested that.
The decision by the state’s Unemployment Insurance Appeal Board does not call for her re-hiring. She has not decided whether to seek her job again and has also not ruled out suing the library.
Her firing “ignited a push” by library employees to unionize, said 27east.com.
WHB Trustees Also Face Revolt
Also facing a revolt of citizens is the board of trustees of Westhampton Beach.
Citizens berated the board for 25 minutes at its Aug. 6 meeting, charging it with failure to communicate adequately about the eruv litigation.
Outside counsel Brian Sokoloff then appeared at the Sept. 3 meeting as a last-minute addition to the agenda and talked for 55 minutes, including an initial 35 uninterrupted minutes on the legalities of the eruv battle.
However, Sokoloff’s presentation was sophistry, meaning “arguments that sound correct but are actually false.”
Sokoloff, while quoting numerous legal decisions, failed to mention the chief criticism of them—that they claim “invisibility” for eruvim when the Jewish religious boundaries are not only highly visible but explained in detail on Synagogue and Google websites.
Citizens at the Sept. 3 meeting said it appears no judge is willing to find against eruvim because that would mean that hundreds of them would have to come down across the nation.
This reporter also made the same and other points in a ten-minute speech to the Sept. 3 meeting that was interrupted numerous times by WHB outside counsel Stephen Angel shouting, “Address the board, address the board.”
We had done that at the start of our speech but also wanted to talk directly to the citizens at the meeting and to the video camera that was taping the meeting for broadcast on WHB’s own website and public Channel 22.
When we mentioned the deal Southampton was making with the East End Eruv Assn., agreeing to allow an eruv in return for EEEA’s promise not to seek millions of legal costs and penalties, Angel told us that anything about SH was irrelevant and told us to take our comments to SH.
We told him that we are residents of SH since we pay taxes to it and both WHB and SH are under legal attack by EEEA.
Maggie Moran, who is well-connected in New Jersey and New York Democratic politics, has established Moxie Strategies in Asbury Park, NJ.
Husch Blackwell Strategies has added FleishmanHillard alum Michael Slatin as a principal in its public affairs group.
Rory Cooper, a veteran Republican operative and policy specialist, has joined Teneo’s Washington office as senior managing director in its strategy & communications practice.
Brian Fallon, who served as national press secretary for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential run, is signing on next month as Vice President’s Kamala Harris’ campaign communications director.
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