SCARBOROUGH PUBLIC LIBRARY
Minutes of the Meeting of the Board of Trustees
February 17, 2022
4:30 Video Conference
Attendees: Emily Ward, Susan Powell, Ellen Detlefsen, Dave Dittmer, Joyce Clark, Bill Donovan, Judy Johnson, Anne Janak, Allen Paul, Lenore Rapkin, Catherine Morrison (Asst. Director), Nancy Crowell (Director).
Absent: Jon Anderson, Jim Kupel.
The meeting was called to order at 4:35 p.m. by the President, Bill Donovan.
Adoption of the Minutes of January 20, 2022:
Motion to adopt by Ellen Detlefsen, seconded by Susan Powell, passed unanimously.
Treasurer’s Report:
Our finances continue to be in good shape, even before a recent large bequest. Nancy pointed out that she does not include gifts in her budget.
Motion to accept report made by Ellen Detlefsen, seconded by Joyce Clark, passed unanimously.
Library Director’s Report:
We continue to be in crisis as we look for a Children’s Librarian with management experience. In the meantime, Catherine and Nancy continue to hold things together, with Catherine dong the bulk of the search. We are currently short one 40 hour person, with 3 part-timers filling in, usually one at a time.
Town Councilor’s Remarks:
Jon is currently on vacation.
President’s Remarks:
Deferred to later on the agenda.
Consent Calendar:
Building Expansion Committee – no meeting.
Community Relations/Development Committee--minutes 2/7/2022
Personnel, Nominating, and Governance Committee--minutes 2/3/2022
FOSL Board—meeting scheduled 2/24/2022.
Motion to accept the Consent Calendar by Allen Paul, seconded by Susan Powell, passed unanimously.
Unfinished business:
Building Project Update: Bill reported having met with Simons before the presentation to the Town Council, and that the Simons team is easy to work with and work is being done in a timely fashion. The presentation was very well received by the Council. Cost projections have begun coming in and the current projection for a 2023 project is $12.6 million, not including $800,000 for moving costs (off-the-top-of-the-head figure at this point), so we realistically should be looking at $13.4-$14 million. Roccy Risbara has not yet been approached about donating space for temporary operations during the construction, but Nancy felt it might encourage others in the community if Roccy’s involvement were to become public. Because we will be operating off site we shouldn’t have to close during this period so there should be no staff disruption. Bill also praised Demont’s preparation for and presentation to the Council.
Fundraising Campaign: Susan reported weekly meetings are being held, either just the executive team or with the Campaign Cabinet. For the record, at this point members of the Cabinet are: John Thurlow, Kate Borduas, Bill Donovan, Jim Kupel, Peter Hatem, Barbara Kapp, Bill and Lucy LaCasse, and Susan Powell.
The Cabinet met yesterday and came up with a possible theme for the campaign: Building Community from Yesterday for Tomorrow. Nancy will ask for bullet points for publicity.
Fundraising training has begun. They have met with John Chrastka of EveryLibrary, who will work with John Lanham of Demont. John L. will focus on fundraising and John C. on community support and the referendum, and there seems to be positive energy between the two. Ellen encouraged trustees to get on EveryLibrary’s mailing list, or at least visit their website.
Nancy reminded the group that a political campaign is very different from a fundraising one, and that where fundraising campaigns can be compassionate, political campaigns can become mean.
Bill reported on the presentation to the Town Council, and began by praising Jon Anderson’s input in the letter we sent to The Leader. Jon warned that we need to tread carefully with the Council. Bill reported that there was an excellent round table discussion, and that Nancy did a wonderful job responding to comments. All councilors expressed their opinion, Jon Anderson and Jean-Marie Caterina were both very supportive of the library and the feeling in the room was generally positive. John Cloutier, the Chair, is a numbers guy so he will be concentrating on any figures we can deliver. Nancy cautioned us to be careful not to emphasize our online and virtual features as they do not make a good argument for more physical space. Cloutier did comment that the library was too small, but also thinks we offer a very expensive service (in tax dollars) for our number of active users (7,000). We would expect an increase in usage right after the reopening (statistics show this is often a 50% increase on opening a new building), and we can use the Hub as an example of this increase. John Cloutier emailed Nancy today to say that it was a good meeting, that it moved the needle. Nancy is a bit concerned about comments she overhead at the Council meeting, such as if the library can raise $2-3 million perhaps the Town can raise another $5 million—Nancy is confident that John Lanham can address this concern. Another comment, this is a rich community, most of the money can be obtained through fundraising.
Bill also reported on the status of a proposed community center, saying they are awaiting word as to whether or not their project could be eligible for a TIF grant, which would alleviate 60% of the tax burden on the Town.
Nancy reported that she recently recruited Kevin Freeman to help with the fundraising. He will assume a leadership position on the Vote Yes Campaign but will not be the Chairperson. We are now looking for chairpersons as well as Honorary Chairpersons for the Campaign. Bert Follansbee has been hired as the graphic designer for both campaigns. And we have launched a separate website for the expansion and it already contains some FAQs. The Campaign for Leadership Gifts is going very well, so far we have raised over $60,000 just with Board members. We should reach our goal of $100,000 by summer.
Board of Trustees Skills Assessment—PNG Committee report: Joyce reported that the results of this survey showed that the Board is strong in terms of skills in policies and direction, less so in terms of strategic plan. Members have minimal knowledge of or experience with emerging trends and foundations. There was also minimal experience with fundraising.
Suggestions were that we need to recruit younger board members, and we need training in fundraising.
It would be helpful to have questions in advance to prepare us for the survey monkey format.
We also need to focus on orientation and mentoring.
New Business:
We will be receiving the budget shortly. The current year is a negative 5% budget and we will be building on that. There is currently a payroll gap with the Children’s Librarian position still open.
Bill reminded us to use every opportunity to push the expansion.
Emily offered congratulations to Anne on her new twin great-grandsons.
Items for next agenda:
Budget review.
Motion to adjourn meeting, Ellen Detlefsen, seconded by Susan Powell, meeting adjourned at 6:07.
Respectfully submitted,
Lenore Rapkin, Secretary