ANN ARBOR DISTRICT LIBRARY BOARD
343 S. FIFTH AVENUE, ANN ARBOR, MI
MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING
MONDAY, MARCH 18, 2013
13-048 I. CALL TO ORDER
President Rosenthal called the meeting to order at 7:03 p.m.
13-049 II. ATTENDANCE
Present: Head, Kaplan, Leary, Murphy, Rosenthal, Surovell
Absent: Barney Newman
Staff: Choate, Neiburger, Parker, Wilson (recorder)
13-050 III. APPROVAL OF AGENDA
(Item of action)
Trustee Murphy, supported by Treasurer Kaplan, moved to approve the agenda.
AYES: Head, Kaplan, Leary, Murphy, Rosenthal, Surovell
NAYS: None
Motion passed 6-0.
13-051 IV. APPROVAL OF MINUTES OF FEBRUARY 18, 2013
(Item of action)
Trustee Leary, supported by Treasurer Kaplan, moved to approve the minutes of February 18, 2013.
AYES: Head, Kaplan, Leary, Murphy, Rosenthal, Surovell
NAYS: None
Motion passed 6-0.
13-052 V. CITIZENS’ COMMENTS
Stewart Gordon
Hi, my name is Stewart Gordon and in my professional life I am a senior research fellow at the Center for South Asian Studies here at the university. In my kind of avocational life I am interested in a skating rink right here on Library Lane. And it’s a proposal that has been kicked around a little bit. You’ve come across it before, but what we’ve found is in talking with people about it so far and also on annarbor.com, that there is a real groundswell of excitement, interest and given the very restricted hours that people can skate at any of the three sites currently that’s not entirely unexpected. All I would like to ask of you is to have a look this report and proposal and I would like to be on the agenda if there are things you would like to discuss with us about this project and I won’t take a lot of your time beyond that. Thank you.
Don Salberg
Good evening, my name is Don Salberg, I’m a retired physician who has lived on the northeast side of Ann Arbor for the last thirty-eight years and I’m a great proponent of our present library. I have three questions that I wish to ask. The first is on October 9th the League of Women’s Voters had a forum for candidates for the board and as reported in Ann Arbor Chronicle, Margaret Leary stated at that time there was a detailed review of the library four years earlier and another one during the spring. I’m wondering if there are any documents available related to those reviews that are not presently on the Ann Arbor library’s website and if so if I might be able to examine them. Number two, I suspect that like most public facilities in that the library has periodic safety inspections and receives a certificate and perhaps a report. I’m wondering if I might be able to see the most recent report on the safety inspection. And finally in relation to the new library that you all want, I understand that you couldn’t have architectural designs made because it would be too expensive especially when there wasn’t ensurity [sic] that you would be getting the funding from the bond referendum. Since it was defeated, you aren’t. But there is a reason why you selected one hundred and sixty thousand square feet for the size of the new library rather than duplicating the present one by just building a one hundred and ten thousand square foot library or maybe even going for a larger library of two hundred thousand square feet. Now I know that there are a few specific features that you mentioned that you wanted in a new library. One of them being a four hundred seat auditorium. Checking on four hundred seat auditoriums at other place in Ann Arbor, I find they range in size of eight thousand to ten thousand square feet. So if you take that off of the additional fifty thousand new square footage of a new library if it were being built as you want, that still leaves forty thousand square feet unaccounted for. I assume that you may want to have a kitchen in there, I’m wondering how big a kitchen. Would it be just for catering or would it be also for fresh preparation and for service for how many people. You may want a dining facility, what would be the capacity of that dining facility. And then I assumed that the rest of the space would be offices and meeting rooms. I’d like to know your vision of the various sizes of the meeting rooms, the total capacity. And also the office space and how you figured that the new library would need these. Thank you very much.
Libby Hunter
My name is Libby Hunter I live on the west side of Ann Arbor. Been there for about ten years. I’m a member of Protect Our Libraries PAC and we have had meetings occasionally. In our deliberations one of the conclusions that we have made is that the library board subcommittee meetings should be public. And we’ve made some phone calls to some other communities so we found out they are public subcommittee meetings in Grosse Pointe, Birmingham, East Lansing and Grand Rapids. The only other place we called was Kalamazoo and they have a lot of subcommittees and they are actually right now in the process of looking into the legalities about having all those or some of them public. So I guess we’re wondering how all of you feel about that. The second thing is we pretty much all feel that the community and the library would both benefit from public viewing of all of the library meetings on CTN. Especially since this space is set up for it. Again, how to do feel about that. Two more things. One we made some phone calls and found out that in municipalities around, there are some Monday’s where no municipalities are having meetings so conceivably the library board meeting could be on a Monday which has no other meetings. No Ann Arbor city council, excreta. So we feel that would be beneficial and wondering how you feel about that. Lastly, it appears that the library board holds a closed session before every regular monthly meeting or most of them or some of them. Okay, well were just wondering how do you reconcile that with the Open Meetings Act if that does happen. But I’ve given my email address here with these questions, I’ll give them to the secretary in case any of you feel like responding to my questions. Thanks for your time, I really appreciate it.
13-053 VI. FINANCIAL REPORTS
Director Parker reported February showed unrestricted cash balance just over $11.5 million. Tax receipts just over $10.9 million, reflecting 97.4% of the budgeted amount, have been received through February. The fund balance stands at just over $8.26 million. Four line items are over budget but are expected to come into line later in the year.
Director Parker thanked the Friends for their recent $40,000 donation. She also stated that funds from the Westerman Fund would be used this year for the summer reading game.
13-054 VII. APPROVAL OF DISBURSEMENTS
(Item of action)
Trustee Leary, supported by Secretary Head, moved to approve the February 2013 disbursements.
AYES: Head, Kaplan, Leary, Murphy, Rosenthal, Surovell
NAYS: None
Motion passed 6-0.
13-055 VIII. COMMITTEE REPORTS
13-056 A. BUDGET & FINANCE COMMITTEE
Chairperson Kaplan reported the committee had met and began the review of the draft 2013-2014 budget. The next committee meeting is scheduled for April 3rd for further review of the draft budget.
13-057 B. COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE
Chairperson Kaplan reported the committee had met and discussed the need of expert assistance in developing a communications plan/audit report. Director Parker has engaged Allerton Hill Consulting to begin this process.
13-058 C. DIRECTOR’S EVALUATION COMMITTEE
President Rosenthal reported the committee will be requesting a closed session at the April Board meeting to review Director Parker’s evaluation per her request.
13-059 D. EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
President Rosenthal reported the committee did not meet.
13-060 E. FACILITIES COMMITTEE
Chairperson Leary reported the committee met in February and received an overview of all branch location conditions. As usual, maintenance issues are being attended to on a regular basis. In the event a major repair is needed, funds from the fund balance would be required. The March committee meeting was canceled.
13-061 F. POLICY COMMITTEE
Chairperson Murphy reported the committee will be meeting in the near future to review the policy manual.
13-062 IX. DIRECTOR’S REPORT
Director Parker thanked the Friends of the Ann Arbor District Library for their recent $250 donation in honor of Gene Wilson. As per their request the funds will be used to purchase materials on conservation and the environment.
A recent USA Today article quoted Associate Director Choate on the various unusual items AADL circulates. She received several inquiries from libraries around the U.S.
A reminder of the upcoming America’s Music series of events cosponsored locally by the Kerrytown Concert House, UMS, WCBN 88.3 FM and the Friends of the AADL.
Director Parker was invited to attend a Michigan Alliance Against Hate Crimes regional training workshop on March 27th.
Andrew Himebaugh was congratulated for qualifying to participate at the state level of the National Geographic Bee. He is home schooled and AADL provided the proper testing location for him.
13-063 X. NEW BUSINESS
13-064 A. RESOLUTION TO EXTEND THE CONTRACT FOR HVAC EQUIPMENT MAINTENANCE AND REPAIR FOR THE LIBRARY FOR ONE YEAR
(Item of action)
Trustee Leary, supported by Secretary Head, moved that the Board resolves that the contract for HVAC equipment and maintenance with Pace Mechanical Services be extended for one year until 6/30/2014 for the amount of $83,865 and that all resolutions and parts of resolutions that conflict with the provisions of this resolution are rescinded.
AYES: Head, Kaplan, Leary, Murphy, Rosenthal, Surovell
NAYS: None
Motion passed 6-0.
13-065 B. AADL PODCAST PROGRAM
Tim Grimes
Tim Grimes, Community Relations and Marketing Manager, gave an overview of AADL’s podcasting program. Clips from the top ten podcasts downloaded were viewed.
13-066 C. AADL AND THE ZUKUNFTSWERKSTATT
Eli Neiburger
Associate Director Eli Neiburger gave an overview of his recent visit to Germany. The purpose of his trip was related to AADL’s gaming events and the gaming tournament system created by AADL. A German-American Gaming League International championship event will be held here on May 18th.
13-067 D. VOTE FOR CLOSED SESSION AT THE APRIL 15, 2013 REGULAR MEETING FOR DIRECTOR’S EVALUATION
(Item of action)
Roll call vote
Trustee Leary, supported by Secretary Head, moved to hold a Closed Session at the April 15, 2013 regular Board meeting for the Director’s Evaluation.
A roll call vote was taken.
AYES: Head, Kaplan, Leary, Murphy, Rosenthal, Surovell
NAYS: None
Motion passed 6-0.
13-068 XI. CITIZENS’ COMMENTS
There were no additional citizens’ comments.
13-069 XII. ADJOURNMENT
Trustee Murphy, supported by Secretary Head, moved to adjourn the meeting.
President Rosenthal adjourned the meeting at 8:28 p.m.