|
|
The Westhampton Library board, unwilling to face a group of citizens that wants it to resign, last night cancelled its monthly meeting set for 9:30 a.m. today, enraging residents.
Library director Danielle Waskiewicz met with a dozen annoyed citizens and Southampton Press reporter Greg Wehner in front of the library at 9:30 a.m. today and told them the meeting had been postponed to Friday Oct. 30 at 9:30 a.m.
The citizens were outraged at the sudden cancellation. Waskiewicz said the board had informed her of its decision at 9 p.m. last night. Word was sent to some residents including this reporter but many interested people did not get the message.
|
|
Karen Andrews, VP and second highest ranking member of the board, was reached today by phone but refused to discuss the cancellation. She is with the local office of the Corcoran Group, part of Realogy Holdings, the largest residential real estate broker with $5.52 billion in sales annually.
Library Board a “Rogue Board”
Most of the 35 residents cheered at the last board meeting Sept. 16 when resident Peter Zegler said board president Joan Levan should resign. Some of the same residents were aghast at the sudden cancellation of the board meeting, saying such action was “unprecedented” and an indication of the imperious attitude of the board.
It has become a “rogue board frightened of dealing with the public,” one resident said today. "The directors have failed to live up to the trust that that public has given to them," said another.
Zegler and other residents passed out nearly 200 leaflets in front of the library Sept. 15-16 saying that the self-appointed board of five women lacked “accountability, transparency, financial oversight and diversity” and the library was a case of “taxation without representation.”
The library, a 501/c/3 non-profit, gets 95.27% of its $2.9 million in yearly revenues from taxes on homeowners in WH and surrounding towns. Only board members have the power to appoint other board members.
Hermon Bishop, former town attorney of WHB, says the board could easily switch to being one that is elected.
The board could also easily switch its meetings to the evening when more residents could attend but has refused at least three months of requests to do so.
Here’s What We Would Have Said
This reporter, who was allowed to speak for five minutes at the Sept. 16 meeting, had asked to be on the agenda for today’s meeting so we could speak longer than five minutes. Waskiewicz refused the request.
Limiting our ability to address the board in open session is also a policy of the board of Westhampton Beach which has blocked us that way at its last two meetings, limiting us to five minutes and harassing us by demanding “address the board, address the board” should our eyes stray from the directors to the people in the room.
Press-blocking, citizen-avoiding tactics of both the WHB and library boards was to be the theme of our remarks.
Both boards could be doing a lot more about two crises facing WHB—the possible closing of the only supermarket in town and the threat of more than $1 million in fines and legal costs if WHB loses its legal battle with the East End Eruv Assn. which wants to put Orthodox Jewish markers on 47 utility poles.
Supermarket, Eruv Crises Ignored by Boards
A dozen employees of Waldbaum’s, among 80 such employees who face loss of their jobs should Best Yet Markets take over the store, asked for support from Mayor Maria Moore and the four other WHB trustees Oct. 8 but were turned down.
Legal counsel Anthony Pasca said “It would be improper for the trustees to intervene and the village is powerless in this situation.” Trustees concurred in that view.
We don’t agree. The trustees could pass a resolution supporting the quest of the worker for fair treatment and could help in gathering information on the confrontation.
The WH library, sitting on $4.1 million in cash/savings when expenses were only $2.58M in 2015, could host public sessions on the issue. It should also host sessions on the eruv situation and have an ongoing exhibit on that complicated subject.
Indications are that the EEEA is proposing to WHB that if it ends all opposition to an eruv in WHB, the EEEA will no longer seek more than $1 million in fines and legal costs. EEEA made such a proposal to Southampton which it accepted Aug. 25.
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.
TikTok is nothing more than a Chinese propaganda tool that poses “a grave threat to America’s national security and, in particular, impressionable children and young adults,” say two Congressmen who want the platform registered as a foreign agent.
Have a comment? Send it to 
No comments have been submitted for this story yet.