Earlier this evening I received several emails on tonight's monthly Phoenixville Library board meeting which is open to the public.
I have been given permission to publish them to the blog.
The content of the emails is interesting, informative, and downright incredible.
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Karen,
I have attended the last 3 monthly library board meetings. I took some notes which contain information which I think is timely and should be of interest to all taxpayers. I have a bias, and so these notes may reflect some of that. I have not reported on everything which took place. I am in no way a journalist, just someone who sometimes watches "the kabuki theater" of public meetings - as David Simon of "The Wire" and Baltimore Sun fame has called them. Mr. Simon has also warned that journalists watch the kabuki theater, then talk to one side and then the other to try to figure out which lie you heard was the truth. The last time that happened in anything reported in Phoenixville, in my humble opinion, was when Karin Williams was still writing semi-regularly for the Phoenix.
With that, I share my notes for the Kabuki theater meeting of the library board on June 8, 2009:
Bill
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Karen,
Some notes on the library board meeting.
During a report on finances a gentleman (don't know his name) noted that there have been significant legal expanses which were much higher than anticipated, and that he expects June will bring another month of significant legal expenses.
Josh Gould stated that there will be a special meeting on the budget this Wednesday at 6 pm, and that this meeting is open to the public. THIS WEDNSEDAY AT 6:00 PM WILL BE THE LAST CHANCE FOR ANYONE IN THE PUBLIC TO EXPRESS THEIR OPINION ON THE BUDGET. Either deliberately or by oversight, and contrary to the discussion on the budget previously, the advertised budget called for a 3.4% increase in library funding according to Josh Gould.
A woman (library board member) announced that the board will be picking 1 of 3 consultants they've identified to help the library foundation prepare for a capital campaign. The consultant would help to clarify community perception of the campaign and to help to conduct a feasibility study to see if a proposed expansion is possible. The consultant is also expected to help with the library endowment.
A former and recently retired board member will be hired for $1 a year for his financial experience and will receive certain insurance benefits.
Present at the meeting were a pair of consultants who led the board in beginning to evaluate their effectiveness as a board. As part of what was an exercise, the executive director of the library went over the mission and goals of the library.
Several other reports and items we discussed.
Bill
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Karen,
Please note that Kelley of the library and Lee Deveney want to do an all-out blitz of school board members during the next 2 days, and then to show up at the Wednesday meeting.
Bill
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I ask, does this plan have any credibility left at all?
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17 comments:
My pasd spies say
Gould votes yes
Wickstrom yes
Slawecki maybe
Slaninka no
Potts no
Parris no
Cassaday no
Dawson no
Starczewski no
What board member could possibly vote in favor of this on the 1-year anniversary of when they killed Noyse's Kimbodump Elementary?
Say NO to the Jackass Lieberry Plan!!!!
There are huge pitfalls in "citizen journalism". In my email to you I stated
that I had a bias. That bias began as a need to preserve what I consider to be
the heart of the livable borough of Phoenixville - Reeves Park. Among others
equally passionate about this issue I have shown up at school board, council and
planning commission meetings.
The third part of your posting of my emails is my writing but was issued from an advocate's point of view rather than an attempt to report from my notes what I observed.
I think I need to say that Ms. Deveney was focused on her goals, but what I did not report to you was that at the meeting she was thoughtful, was discussing the
best course of action to take and while advocating tried to steer the discussion in a balanced manner.
Another comment I would add is that the attempt by the board to get help to be a better board and to enlist consultants to guide them in a capital campaign which tries to objectively measure the sentiments of the populace and their ability and willingness to makea financial commitment is a good sign.
However, these are steps which should have been taken years ago. The measures that these initiatives would have put in place would most likely have prevented this hugely toxic "concept" from moving off of a sketchpad and into the public forums. I think these are positive steps. If - hopefully when - the school board also demonstrates that they have learned the lessons which they said they learned last year regarding the Kimberton elementary school land deal and votes to rescind the agency agreement with the library board land development committee, these steps should lay the foundation for a do-over and a better plan for continuing and enhancing library services for the greater Phoenixville area - keeping in mind the constraints of hard economic times, the ability of its seniors to pay taxes towards the budget, and that there is no such thing as a guaranteed budget increase.
Plan to attend:
Wednesday, June 10, 2009 – 6:00 p.m.
Administration Building Conference Room
June 10 2009 Board Budget Committee Meeting/Other items before the Board Agenda
RECOGNITION OF VISITORS
I. Recognition of Visitors – Comments on any Agenda Subject.
[The Board requests that comments be limited to three minutes per person.]
BOARD BUDGET REPORT
I. Adoption of the General Fund 2009-2010 Budget
II. Adoption of the 2009-2010 Tax Resolutions
It's your tax dollars
Remember, more of your tax dollars are needed to pay for legal bills so far. Fight the recession and keep our lawyers gainfully employed. Give your tax dollars to help this Library Expansion Concept succeed!
Are my school taxes paying for their crap consultants and crap lawyers??? When is this going to stop?
Does anyone know who is providing the funding for the consultant and the lawyer's fees? Is this what the capital campaign money is being spent on, or is the money coming from tax dollars?
This is a question that should be asked at the board meeting.
Where will this meeting be held? Address please.
I know for a fact that the SB retained an impartial lawyer to fight the countersuit the insurance company filed for $75,000 and a percentage of the recovery.Please quit wasting my hard earned dollars on this crap and get back to educating children.Karen you are able to verify this go ahead.
In response to the school board's 75K countersuit to the insurance company's lawsuit. Can you please clarify what this is in reference to?
The SB has spent like a million dollars the last year so I have no idea where this money went. Was it the library, Noyse? Endless possibilities where they're wasting our $.Thanks.
cAN SOMEONE PLEASE EXPLAIN BLITZ THE SB?
Blitz the Schoolboard is something that the library board is doing knowing their terrible library expansion plan is doomed to fail. There would be no need to blitz the schoolboard if their plan was a winner.
Maybe they can spend more of our pasd $ and hire more consultants to see if pigs fly?
The PASD School Board has historically just given the library an automatic increase in funding without asking many questions or looking at how the library was being run. Now the library foundation and the Phoenixville public library have dropped a load onto the school board with a plan that has polarized the community, will cost a ton of money in legal and other fees and will result in significantly increased library operational costs each year from now on – yearly increasing costs which the library will ask homeowners to bear each year going forward. They've drawn a spotlight onto themselves at a time when the school board budget needs to be approved and tax rates set; and now for the first time the taxpayers and some of the school board members are not just granting this little group what they ask for without question. Since the school board has before it two issues - giving the go ahead to the divisive and expensive expansion plan while at the same time setting the yearly allocation for operational funding of the library – those on the library foundation board need to blitz the School Board (SB) in a last minute attempt - the tax rates must be approved this month - to defend their requests as being reasonable.
The blitz is a sports analogy. The Library Board wants to overwhelm the PASD SB with emails and letters and public presentations to defend their shaky position up against their own goal line with time running out on the clock. The PASD taxpayers have always lost when it comes to the games played by the library foundation. And those were always night games with the stadium lights turned off.
Apparently nothing newsworthy came from the meeting - or it ended too late to make the Thursday edition of the Phoenix.
Oh, I'm sorry. This is a story that the citizens of Phoenixville don't care about so the paper didn't cover it.
School board finance committee meeting will be held TONIGHT.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009 – 6:00 p.m.
Administration Building Conference Room
Ed -
FYI and FWIW there was a reporter from the Pottstown Mercury at the Phoenixville Borough Council last night (that would be Tuesday).
Some newsworthy items from that:
Local developer Evans came before council and asked for a conditional use meeting for the property at Bridge and Starr street which he does not own and which the courts determined twice is owned by another entity for the next 60 some years.
Two new police officers for the borough were appointed (pending usual physical and psychological results). Both are young men, military veterans. One is presently an officer in another municipality.
The "Northern Relieve Route" proposal was passed over by PennDot.
Thanks Karen -
Got my days mixed up. Wed the 10th is today. Sure hope the Phoenix is present. I have another meeting to go to tonight.
Thought today was Thursday and that I had missed both my meeting and the schoolboard's meeting.
Age is catching up with me.
I can't take the credit for the FYI response, Ed. That will have to go to the anonymous poster!
Don't apologize. There are days when I wake up and wonder who that is in the bathroom mirror. ;)
The &75,000 is in reference to the Kimberton School.
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