BOARD MINUTES, 14 February, 2002

MINUTES

Board of Trustees Regular Meeting

Thursday, February 14, 2002

Traverse Area District Library

(minutes are unofficial until approved by the Board of Trustees)

The meeting was called to order at 5:30 p.m. by President Brown. Present were Brown, Mesch, Welch, Lawrence, Maxson, Schermerhorn and Quick. Also present were Judson (Counsel) and McGuire (Staff).

Motion by Maxson, supported by Welch to amend the agenda to add as item c. under New Business: “Consideration of adopting a plan for trustee orientation”. Carried.

Motion by Welch, supported by Mesch to approve the minutes from the Regular Meeting of January 10, 2002. Maxson noted the omission of the word “Committee” after “Personnel” in the last line of the fourth paragraph on page 2 and asked that this be corrected. Minutes were approved as corrected.

McGuire reported that construction on the Friends’ store is almost completed and invited the trustees to check it out while they were in the building.

A rotating DVD collection is being started for the member libraries.

McGuire asked the trustees to let someone in Administration know if they don’t get their meeting packets by the Wednesday morning before a meeting so that another packet can be prepared for them.

Quick reported that the Facilities and Services committee had interviewed five architects for the design of a prototypical branch library and selected one to recommend to the full Board. This will be handled as New Business. Quick is working on getting information on tctv2 so the committee can develop a report for the Board. Quick, McGuire and Schneider have met with Mark Morrow of the Breton Group to bring him up to date on TADL’s tentative plans for branch libraries and to discuss how his activities can be coordinated with the architect.

Maxson reported that the Finance Committee had not met, but a financial report for December was included in the meeting packets. The copy that was mailed should be replaced by the revised copy handed out prior to the meeting. The layout of the report has been changed to make it easier to follow, and the

December report reflects the budget adjustments adopted at the December meeting. There will probably need to be more adjustments after the audit, which will be done after April 15 when the auditors finish their income tax activities. Committee members and McGuire responded to several questions from other trustees.

Mesch brought to the trustees’ attention a form distributed prior to the meeting for the trustees to evaluate the Director. McGuire will also complete the form. Committee members pointed out that this is the Board’s first tool for evaluation of the Director, and that it will undoubtedly be revised once the Board has some experience with it. Following discussion of the process, Mesch asked that the trustees return their forms to the committee by February 28. The committee will review and summarize them. A Special Meeting was set for March 7. At this meeting, which should be posted as a possible closed session, the Board will first meet to review the evaluations and arrive at a consensus, then McGuire will be asked to join the Board to complete the evaluation. McGuire requested that this all be done in closed session. The Personnel Committee will meet again to review the evaluation and prepare contract recommendations for action at the next Regular Meeting.

Lawrence reported that the Policy Committee had met with Judson to work on the by-laws. A draft of the revised by-laws was distributed to the trustees for their review. Comments should be returned to the committee by March 1, so that the committee can have the by-laws ready for action at the next Regular Meeting.

Julie Maxson, Peninsula Community Library, reports that PCL is busier and busier, and a lot of the increase is related to non-print materials. PCL really appreciates the addition of the rotating DVD collection. Maxson and J. Anderson, Interlochen Public Library, have talked about ways to recognize local businesses that support the small libraries. At this time Maxson recognized Windows Restaurant owner Phil Murray, who recently came to PCL and prepared several dishes and also said he would donate to PCL half of the proceeds from the sale of his recently-published cookbook. She asked that anyone who knows him thank him for his support of the library.

Judy Anderson, Interlochen Public Library, agreed with Maxson and recognized local author Doug Stanton, who presented a program at IPL and gave IPL the profits from the books sold at that event. Anderson thanked the Board for the staff holiday dinner and announced two upcoming events: a February 26 workshop on book-making conducted by Pam Gianola and underwritten by the IPL Friends, and a gardening workshop on March 27 conducted by master gardener Linda Alessio. IPL participated in the Storyline America program on public radio stations. IPL and TADL underwrote the program on the local public radio station and will now receive tapes of the programs.

Lawrence reported for Fife Lake Public Library that she had attended the FLPL Board meeting the previous evening because the superintendent of Fife Lake’s school system was there to address the Board. He said that they would be having a millage election to obtain money to acquire space to combine the two grade schools into one, but she was a little disappointed that he didn’t mention making space in the schools for FLPL. FLPL’s Valentine tea was well attended, and they continue to dialogue with the townships that they serve.

Ethel Kage, Friends of the Library, reiterated McGuire’s comments on the gift shop and added some details. She reminded the trustees of the Friends’ 20^th Anniversary reception on Friday, February 15. The Friends are researching how best to use a $1000 literacy grant from Wal-Mart and would welcome input from the trustees.

There were no other reports or communications.

There was no Old Business.

Motion by Quick, supported by Lawrence to enter into an agreement for architectural services with Advantage Design for the schematic design of prototypical branch libraries at a cost not to exceed $14,000; said agreement subject to approval by the Library Director as to substance and by Counsel as to form. Carried. Quick suggested that it might be advantageous for the entire Board to meet with the architect before he actually begins the design.

Motion by Welch, supported by Maxson to go into closed session immediately following public comment to review strategies for contract negotiations with Teamsters Local 214. Roll call vote was as follows: