![In response to Mayor Mary Marvin’s column published on Weds, February 1, 2012 in the PATCH (“revised Feb. 2”), LoHud.com, and MOST PROMINENTLY in MyHometownBronxville, Sean Abbott, on the same day, sent the following letter (emphases added) to the editors of these publications, asking that it be published in full. {The PATCH had done so by Friday, Feb. 3, though omitting the “smoking gun” paragraphs (available below). MHTBXV refused to publish the letter.}
To the Editor,
There are a number of factual errors in Mayor Mary Marvin’s column of Feb. 1 that require correcting. Also assertions that bear examining.
First and indisputably, there are 8 Library Trustees, not 7. I am the senior Library Trustee (serving since March 2008) and was alone among the 8 in voting against the Nov. 14 reduction of Library Director Laura Eckley’s Oct. 12 salary increase.
This letter is from me as a citizen and should not be identified or construed as “Library Board-approved.” I continue to serve faithfully as a Trustee of the Bronxville Public Library and with resolute obedience to my Oath of Office. I will not, however, submit to peer pressure nor to attempts by Village Hall (most aggressively on Oct. 31) to silence me on a matter of great importance to Bronxville citizens and taxpayers.
If the Mayor believes she was denied “our day in court” by Ms. Eckley’s having withdrawn the Article 78 proceeding “the day prior to our filing deadline,” Her Honor’s own lawyer, James Staudt, delayed and thus denied Her Honor that “day in court” by demanding — and receiving — a two-week extension on the Mayor’s filing.
Her Honor identifies herself as “a proud graduate of an all-women’s college” — from which we are to infer, I presume, that Her Honor is to be automatically accorded the status of “feminist.” Not a single woman heads a department at Village Hall, unless Julie Cagliostro ($113,170/annum) is a department of one. Certainly, Ms. Cagliostro is not listed in the Village’s official directory as a department head (“Business Area: MIS”).
The Library’s Director is also not a department head. That person — as of Feb. 4 it will no longer be Ms. Eckley — reports to an independent governing body, the Library Board. And it is here that the real trouble resides, in the very serious matter of the Library’s independent governance.
I fear that as this unhappy event continues to play out in the press, as the Mayor has insisted on doing by devoting an entire column to it, Bronxville will come under increasing scrutiny and ridicule by neighboring communities — and beyond.
Because it is difficult to find the evidence of the Bronxville Public Library’s genuine independence from Village Authority. The fact that the Mayor and Village Administrator Harold Porr met privately with Library Board president Kathleen Mullen and Library Board secretary Rosanne Welshimer on Oct. 18 (Village Treasurer Robert Fels was also present) speaks to the magnitude of this problem.
That meeting was never authorized by the Library Board in full assembly, as is required by law. The details of that meeting, except for a single document in Mr. Fels’s hand, have been kept secret. Ms. Mullen and Ms. Welshimer went straight from that meeting to Ms. Eckley’s office to inform her that her new salary would need to be reviewed in a special meeting of the Library Board. Ms. Mullen and Ms. Welshimer separately emailed Ms. Eckley on Oct. 26 to say that she had “misunderstood” their Oct. 18 visit and that her new salary was NOT in jeopardy. But it was indeed in jeopardy, as the special meeting of the Library Board on Nov. 14 established.
The Mayor makes this misstatement of the facts of the Library Board’s unanimous Oct. 12 vote to raise the Director’s salary: “When complete financial information was later presented to the Library Board, it became clear that they did not have sufficient money without cutting and reducing other line items in the budget to fund the raise.” Untrue and insulting — because the Mayor is essentially accusing the Library Board of being ignorant of its own budget. We were NOT.
Here’s what REALLY happened. On Sept. 29, the Library Board’s personnel committee, of which I am a member, met to discuss staff salaries. On Oct. 7, the committee voted unanimously to present Trustee Karen Falk’s recommendation that the Board resolve to increase Ms. Eckley’s annual salary to $100K — a salary consistent with that of library directors of Ms. Eckley’s seniority in neighboring communities. On Oct. 12, the Library Board passed the resolution — unanimously.
The Mayor asserts that the “Library Finance Chairman” [sic] — Ms. Welshimer — was unaware of the personnel committee’s work. This is untrue. Ms. Mullen attested at both personnel committee meetings that she was “discussing with Rosanne how to make the numbers work.” Further, a Sept. 30 email from Ms. Falk to Ms. Welshimer establishes the fact of detailed communication between the committees.
It is untrue, as the Mayor claims, that Ms. Welshimer was “denied the opportunity,” by me, to address the Oct. 12 meeting from Florida via speakerphone. Library Board President Mullen, an attorney, made the decision not to contact Ms. Welshimer after I directed Ms. Mullen’s attention to a section of NYS Public Officers Law and to a related advisory that such communication would be “inconsistent with law.”
Regardless, what “complete financial information” was possessed by Ms. Welshimer on Oct. 12, and that the rest of us lacked? None. There was no confusion by the Library Board as to the implications of the vote to increase the Director’s salary. Library Trustees were admirably articulate on the importance of advocating for the public funding necessary to cover Library services, including the appropriate compensation of the Director.
This advocacy by the Library Trustees happens every year under the same circumstances that the police chief and the heads of DPW, Buildings, and other departments, make their respective claims on the Village budget. The money need not have been “found,” as the Mayor asserts, “by trimming hours of operation or book budgets,” but by the Library Trustees doing their jobs by presenting a Library budget consistent with what Bronxville taxpayers rightly expect of their Library.
And here is the biggest problem. A gigantic embarrassment for Bronxville. I have been a party to it, and I record here my sense of shame and dismay in having participated. For years, the Library Board has RETURNED tens of thousands of dollars to Village Administration — $98,000 since 2005. This JUST ISN’T DONE by library boards in neighboring communities.
The result has been that, each year, we’ve had to “beg it back.” This is NOT good “stewardship of our tax dollars,” as the Mayor describes it, but the explicit abdication by the Library Board of its Chartered authority to Village Administration. And just because this has been consistent practice — $16K went from the Library back to the Village last year; $19K the year before that{*} — does not make that practice right or, very likely, even legal. Yes, it has come to this: a need to examine New York State Library Law, to find out whether or not the Village can apply the pressure it has applied to Library Trustees (myself included, during my 18 months as Library Board president). Mr. Staudt, who at present represents BOTH the Library and the Village of Bronxville, is most certainly NOT the attorney for this job.
Interestingly, a 2007 email from Library (and also Bronxville Village) attorneys Bond, Schoeneck & King to former Library Director Jane Marino says the following: “…recent [NYS] opinions have determined that a public library is a separate entity [from its sponsoring municipality]. These opinions are not binding precedent; however, they are persuasive authority. In addition, court decisions in New York have generally considered, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, public libraries to be separate entities from their sponsoring municipalities.”
And the Mayor herself wrote just last May 12 (“Ode to the Bronxville Library”): “New York State Education Law governs much of the operation of local libraries…. Additionally, in an effort to shield libraries from the influence of government politics and safeguard the First Amendment principles, municipalities fund a library but it is the volunteer Library Board, in conjunction with the director, who makes the decisions as to staffing, what materials are purchased and the hours the facility will operate.”
Were it that the Mayor practiced her preachment. It is the Mayor’s “regular custom to sit in on meetings with the Village Administrator when I am in Village Hall” — but Oct. 18 was one meeting that Her Honor, by Her Honor’s own words, well knew should not have been permitted to even occur. A responsible chief executive would have disbanded the meeting, not “sat in” on it.
Despite Her Honor’s insistence otherwise, the Mayor’s perception of her “reputation” is not the issue here, but Her Honor certainly does nothing for it by perpetuating distortions and untruths as to what has REALLY been going on at the Library and at Village Hall — not just during the folly that lost Bronxville an outstanding Library Director to Larchmont, but for many years prior. It’s all about the money. Let’s look into it.
Sean Abbott, Bronxville Citizen
…
{* “Citizen Abbott” curiously omits direct mention of the fact that he was Library Board president at the time this $35,000 was “RETURNED” — as he politely phrases CLAWED-BACK. Nor does he note that private donors to the Library via the “Friends” were and are essentially taxing themselves, as long as the CLAW-BACK is allowed to continue.** You are correct in your “sense of shame,” Mr. Abbott! No one is Not Guilty!
** What is the Library’s SURPLUS today, one might wonder? Laura Eckley departed for Larchmont before the completion of her staggered “bonus payout” — hmmm, where does it go, the $$$?}](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lyryiqTV811r7y48fo1_1280.jpg)
In response to Mayor Mary Marvin’s column published on Weds, February 1, 2012 in the PATCH (“revised Feb. 2”), LoHud.com, and MOST PROMINENTLY in MyHometownBronxville, Sean Abbott, on the same day, sent the following letter (emphases added) to the editors of these publications, asking that it be published in full. {The PATCH had done so by Friday, Feb. 3, though omitting the “smoking gun” paragraphs (available below). MHTBXV refused to publish the letter.}
To the Editor,
There are a number of factual errors in Mayor Mary Marvin’s column of Feb. 1 that require correcting. Also assertions that bear examining.
First and indisputably, there are 8 Library Trustees, not 7. I am the senior Library Trustee (serving since March 2008) and was alone among the 8 in voting against the Nov. 14 reduction of Library Director Laura Eckley’s Oct. 12 salary increase.
This letter is from me as a citizen and should not be identified or construed as “Library Board-approved.” I continue to serve faithfully as a Trustee of the Bronxville Public Library and with resolute obedience to my Oath of Office. I will not, however, submit to peer pressure nor to attempts by Village Hall (most aggressively on Oct. 31) to silence me on a matter of great importance to Bronxville citizens and taxpayers.
If the Mayor believes she was denied “our day in court” by Ms. Eckley’s having withdrawn the Article 78 proceeding “the day prior to our filing deadline,” Her Honor’s own lawyer, James Staudt, delayed and thus denied Her Honor that “day in court” by demanding — and receiving — a two-week extension on the Mayor’s filing.
Her Honor identifies herself as “a proud graduate of an all-women’s college” — from which we are to infer, I presume, that Her Honor is to be automatically accorded the status of “feminist.” Not a single woman heads a department at Village Hall, unless Julie Cagliostro ($113,170/annum) is a department of one. Certainly, Ms. Cagliostro is not listed in the Village’s official directory as a department head (“Business Area: MIS”).
The Library’s Director is also not a department head. That person — as of Feb. 4 it will no longer be Ms. Eckley — reports to an independent governing body, the Library Board. And it is here that the real trouble resides, in the very serious matter of the Library’s independent governance.
I fear that as this unhappy event continues to play out in the press, as the Mayor has insisted on doing by devoting an entire column to it, Bronxville will come under increasing scrutiny and ridicule by neighboring communities — and beyond.
Because it is difficult to find the evidence of the Bronxville Public Library’s genuine independence from Village Authority. The fact that the Mayor and Village Administrator Harold Porr met privately with Library Board president Kathleen Mullen and Library Board secretary Rosanne Welshimer on Oct. 18 (Village Treasurer Robert Fels was also present) speaks to the magnitude of this problem.
That meeting was never authorized by the Library Board in full assembly, as is required by law. The details of that meeting, except for a single document in Mr. Fels’s hand, have been kept secret. Ms. Mullen and Ms. Welshimer went straight from that meeting to Ms. Eckley’s office to inform her that her new salary would need to be reviewed in a special meeting of the Library Board. Ms. Mullen and Ms. Welshimer separately emailed Ms. Eckley on Oct. 26 to say that she had “misunderstood” their Oct. 18 visit and that her new salary was NOT in jeopardy. But it was indeed in jeopardy, as the special meeting of the Library Board on Nov. 14 established.
The Mayor makes this misstatement of the facts of the Library Board’s unanimous Oct. 12 vote to raise the Director’s salary: “When complete financial information was later presented to the Library Board, it became clear that they did not have sufficient money without cutting and reducing other line items in the budget to fund the raise.” Untrue and insulting — because the Mayor is essentially accusing the Library Board of being ignorant of its own budget. We were NOT.
Here’s what REALLY happened. On Sept. 29, the Library Board’s personnel committee, of which I am a member, met to discuss staff salaries. On Oct. 7, the committee voted unanimously to present Trustee Karen Falk’s recommendation that the Board resolve to increase Ms. Eckley’s annual salary to $100K — a salary consistent with that of library directors of Ms. Eckley’s seniority in neighboring communities. On Oct. 12, the Library Board passed the resolution — unanimously.
The Mayor asserts that the “Library Finance Chairman” [sic] — Ms. Welshimer — was unaware of the personnel committee’s work. This is untrue. Ms. Mullen attested at both personnel committee meetings that she was “discussing with Rosanne how to make the numbers work.” Further, a Sept. 30 email from Ms. Falk to Ms. Welshimer establishes the fact of detailed communication between the committees.
It is untrue, as the Mayor claims, that Ms. Welshimer was “denied the opportunity,” by me, to address the Oct. 12 meeting from Florida via speakerphone. Library Board President Mullen, an attorney, made the decision not to contact Ms. Welshimer after I directed Ms. Mullen’s attention to a section of NYS Public Officers Law and to a related advisory that such communication would be “inconsistent with law.”
Regardless, what “complete financial information” was possessed by Ms. Welshimer on Oct. 12, and that the rest of us lacked? None. There was no confusion by the Library Board as to the implications of the vote to increase the Director’s salary. Library Trustees were admirably articulate on the importance of advocating for the public funding necessary to cover Library services, including the appropriate compensation of the Director.
This advocacy by the Library Trustees happens every year under the same circumstances that the police chief and the heads of DPW, Buildings, and other departments, make their respective claims on the Village budget. The money need not have been “found,” as the Mayor asserts, “by trimming hours of operation or book budgets,” but by the Library Trustees doing their jobs by presenting a Library budget consistent with what Bronxville taxpayers rightly expect of their Library.
And here is the biggest problem. A gigantic embarrassment for Bronxville. I have been a party to it, and I record here my sense of shame and dismay in having participated. For years, the Library Board has RETURNED tens of thousands of dollars to Village Administration — $98,000 since 2005. This JUST ISN’T DONE by library boards in neighboring communities.
The result has been that, each year, we’ve had to “beg it back.” This is NOT good “stewardship of our tax dollars,” as the Mayor describes it, but the explicit abdication by the Library Board of its Chartered authority to Village Administration. And just because this has been consistent practice — $16K went from the Library back to the Village last year; $19K the year before that{*} — does not make that practice right or, very likely, even legal. Yes, it has come to this: a need to examine New York State Library Law, to find out whether or not the Village can apply the pressure it has applied to Library Trustees (myself included, during my 18 months as Library Board president). Mr. Staudt, who at present represents BOTH the Library and the Village of Bronxville, is most certainly NOT the attorney for this job.
Interestingly, a 2007 email from Library (and also Bronxville Village) attorneys Bond, Schoeneck & King to former Library Director Jane Marino says the following: “…recent [NYS] opinions have determined that a public library is a separate entity [from its sponsoring municipality]. These opinions are not binding precedent; however, they are persuasive authority. In addition, court decisions in New York have generally considered, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, public libraries to be separate entities from their sponsoring municipalities.”
And the Mayor herself wrote just last May 12 (“Ode to the Bronxville Library”): “New York State Education Law governs much of the operation of local libraries…. Additionally, in an effort to shield libraries from the influence of government politics and safeguard the First Amendment principles, municipalities fund a library but it is the volunteer Library Board, in conjunction with the director, who makes the decisions as to staffing, what materials are purchased and the hours the facility will operate.”
Were it that the Mayor practiced her preachment. It is the Mayor’s “regular custom to sit in on meetings with the Village Administrator when I am in Village Hall” — but Oct. 18 was one meeting that Her Honor, by Her Honor’s own words, well knew should not have been permitted to even occur. A responsible chief executive would have disbanded the meeting, not “sat in” on it.
Despite Her Honor’s insistence otherwise, the Mayor’s perception of her “reputation” is not the issue here, but Her Honor certainly does nothing for it by perpetuating distortions and untruths as to what has REALLY been going on at the Library and at Village Hall — not just during the folly that lost Bronxville an outstanding Library Director to Larchmont, but for many years prior. It’s all about the money. Let’s look into it.
Sean Abbott, Bronxville Citizen
…
{* “Citizen Abbott” curiously omits direct mention of the fact that he was Library Board president at the time this $35,000 was “RETURNED” — as he politely phrases CLAWED-BACK. Nor does he note that private donors to the Library via the “Friends” were and are essentially taxing themselves, as long as the CLAW-BACK is allowed to continue.** You are correct in your “sense of shame,” Mr. Abbott! No one is Not Guilty!
** What is the Library’s SURPLUS today, one might wonder? Laura Eckley departed for Larchmont before the completion of her staggered “bonus payout” — hmmm, where does it go, the $$$?}
