Library Board Update

I reported yesterday that the West Bend Library Board planned to meet today in an emergency meeting to discuss hiring outside council. I publicized the meeting and posted a letter from the City Attorney detailing why this was a bad idea.  

Well, they met, and it was apparently interesting.  I could not attend the meeting.  I had prior plans and the excessively short notice prevented any juggling of schedules.  Ginny, OTOH, attended and has a report on the meeting. 

Apparently, I was quite the villain. 

Furthermore, Deters was quite upset that “someone” had given out the city attorney’s letter (see prior post) and it was posted on Boots and Sabers by 9 p.m. last evening. She said that it appeared the city was being run by bloggers and whoever leaked the information from the city attorney to Boots and Sabers was both “unprofessional” and that it was inappropriate, and that those involved “did not have the best interests of the city in mind.” She called the city attorney to clue her in to the blog post. Deters said that the city attorney told her that letter was “attorney/client privilege” and was not an open record to be shared. She glanced around the table, but nobody fessed up.

First off, the letter I posted was certainly subject to open records.  The Library Board seems to be having issues with these laws.  The laws are pretty clear and if it’s not a personnel issue, it’s open.  Either Deters is lying or the City Attorney is way off base. 

Second, let’s review the events… The Library Board schedules an emergency meeting on Tuesday to be held Thursday.  A local blogger (um… me) publicizes the meeting and its agenda.  Deters is upset?  If everything is above board, why would Deters object to the public being informed so they can attend?  If they can discuss the issue of hiring an outside attorney in open forum, then why was it inappropriate to discuss the City Attorney’s advice on this blog? 

Clearly, Deters wanted to ram this through with as little notice as possible.  Unfortunately for her, there are citizens in West Bend who give a damn and happen to have a forum to publicize her nonsense. 

In the end, they board voted unanimously to spend money to speak with another attorney.

The attorney fee, Deters said, was probably about $250 per hour. She stated “I will go and meet with him alone” to gather the information she desired, and would bring it back to the next board meeting. This would be a one-time meeting, with no future plans to obtain counsel from Atty. Feind. The funds would come out of ENDOWMENTS, not library funding, which Deters felt was appropriate for this matter.

Atty. Aynesworth suggested Deters contact the DOJ for the information she was seeking. Deters responded that she did not wish to wait that long as she was sure they would not be a “priority” on the DOJ’s list of things to do. She wanted an answer “now.”

I imagine that the people who funded that endowment thought it would be spent to share books and knowledge with the library’s patrons - not pay for legal advice that has already been given by the City Attorney and could be validated for free elsewhere.

This Library Board is seriously out of control and Deters is behaving like a nut. 

Where is the Mayor?  She appointed and vouched for these folks.  What does she think of their overt desire to ignore the citizens and waste money intended for making the library better?

UPDATE: Here’s the Daily News’ story on the meeting.

Posted by Owen at 2318 hrs
Politics + Politics - Wisconsin