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Somerville library trustees still insist: Let voters rule on joining county system

The Messenger-Gazette By The Messenger-Gazette The Somerset Reporter
on October 14, 2010 at 11:08 AM, updated October 14, 2010 at 11:14 AM


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SOMERVILLE — Although library trustee Stephanie Hayes feels like the board is “going down with the ship,” the Somerville Public Library’s board of trustees remains insistent that the borough voters must decide whether the library should join the county system.

A vote to accept the “demunicipalization” of the borough library without a referendum was taken at last night’s board meeting. The vote was five in favor and three against. But a two-thirds majority is needed to rescind a previous resolution, so the motion failed and the board remains officially opposed to what Borough Council regards as a fait accompli.

The three holdouts are board chairman Jim Loewen, Carol Brady and Roberta Karpinecz. Voting to accept the council’s decision to join the county system were Hayes, Herb Hall, Fran Bardes, Mary Ellen Marsjanik and Lori McNeil.

Although Loewen did put in a good word for the two million books available to borough library patrons via inter-library loan, no one at the meeting expressed opposition to joining the county system.

The problem, as expressed by Loewen, is that a referendum is necessary to demunicipalize the library and opinions by the state attorney general support that view. Drawing a parallel from the business world, he said, “A board of directors cannot dissolve a corporation. That’s a decision to be made by the shareholders.” And in this case the shareholders are the residents of the borough. “This is not just a legal nicety,” he said.

Hall, leading the opposition, said the law is unclear and the attorney general’s opinion contained some “wiggle room… there’s a ‘should’ not a ‘shall.’ Hall supports the borough attorney’s opinion that a referendum is not necessary.

Meanwhile the borough library is scheduled to join the county system on Jan. 1, unless a lawsuit by a former board member causes a judge to rule that a referendum is necessary.
When the public was invited to give input, former Somerville school board president Bob Kapp said the borough library’s collection is light on non-fiction, which students need for research. “It’s not anyone’s fault,” he said. “It’s a matter of money.” Students need access to the county collection, and “you do a disservice to the kids” if you impede that access.

Nancy DiGraziano said she loves the borough library and took her kids to classes and shows there when they were little, but when they got older she took them to the bigger county library in Bridgewater for their school projects.

She also said she’d recently spoken to a well-educated person who believes that the borough library is going to be closed. “If we did go to referendum, people might have that assumption and vote ‘no.’”

Another vote was taken on a resolution proposed by Hall pledging the cooperation of the board in the library’s transition into the county system and the board of trustees’ transition to an advisory board — unless the court rules by Dec. 31 that a referendum is necessary.

This resolution failed by a 4-3 vote because, as the chairman explained, if the court does not rule by Dec. 31, the board of trustees would be dissolving itself “de facto.” Besides Loewen, the “no” voters were Brady, Bardes and Karpinecz. The “yes” voters were Hall, Hayes and McNeil.

Whether this resistance to the will of the mayor and Borough Council is merely symbolic or will have an important impact of the transition remains to be seen.
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