Westhampton Free Library Board Meeting Wednesday, March 16, 7 pm

Please join us Wednesday, March 16, at 7 pm, at the Westhampton Free Library. An email has been sent to the Board respectfully requesting that the elected board issue be placed on the agenda and publicly discussed. Here is some background:

Beginning August 12, 2015, taxpayers of the Westhampton Free Library have repeatedly asked the Board of Trustees to amend the Library’s by-laws to allow for public elections for trustees.

These appeals have been on multiple platforms, authored and verbalized by many different people: during Public Expression at monthly board meetings, on a website, a Facebook page, on the Patch Bulletin Board, with emails, distributed flyers, and a petition, and with articles, a Viewpoint piece, and Letters to the Editor in The Southampton Press. Yet we still had three trustees appointed on October 30, 2015, and three trustees appointed on February 16, 2016.

The Board stated at the November 18, 2015, meeting that researching an elected board is a low priority and that multiple employee pending litigation as well as the employees’ union contract are the priorities.

Two employee cases were settled in January 2016; there is at least one other case outstanding. As of this moment, the union has not yet presented a contract to the Board.

Also, per the Library’s March/April newsletter, we taxpayers should “be on the lookout for public input sessions this spring regarding the attic renovation.” A new priority for the Board.

We should not be denied our right to vote. There should be no more appointments. Specifically, Susan Rosenberg's term ends July 20, 2016 and Barbara Matros' term ends July 10, 2016. Will the Library hold public elections as has been requested for the past seven months, or will there continue to be trustee appointments? Moving forward, what is the plan?