Library Board of Trustees Meeting

Escondido Public Library Board of Trustees Board Meeting Minutes Tuesday, January 9, 2018, 2:00 p.m. CALL TO ORDER: President Guiles called the meeting to order at 2:02 p.m. Members Present: President Ron Guiles and Trustees Elmer Cameron, Mirek Gorny, and Mayra Salazar. Members Absent: Trustee Gary Knight Staff Present: Joanna Axelrod, Deputy City Librarian; and Misty Breymeyer, Division Coordinator. LS&S Staff Present: Barbara Howison, Regional Director; Tom Poure, Senior Account Executive ORAL COMMUNICATIONS: None MINUTES: Agenda Item 1. Approve Minutes from the December 12, 2017 and December 20, 2017 meetings. Motion by Trustee Salazar, seconded by Trustee Gorny to approve the December 12, 2017 and December 20, 2017 minutes as written. Motion carried unanimously. CURRENT BUSINESS: Agenda Item 2. Update on Transition to Library Systems & Services Management (LS&S} Agenda #2 PUBLIC COMMENT: Virginia Abushanab, Escondido; She and her husband were two of the three volunteers who quit as a result of the decision to outsource. She referenced the annual monetary donation from the Friends used for programs and materials, and had concerns how the materials will be purchased. She quit volunteering because she doesn't feel her efforts should go to support a hedge-fund company. She was at the court while the temporary restraining order hearing was decided and feels the City is using the Board of Trustees as pawns. She has concerns about how the City Librarian was picked and what involvement the Board played in this, and suggested 5  the Board stand by their stance to not privatize and to stop cooperating with LS&S in moving forward with this transition. Patricia Borchman, Escondido; attended the temporary restraining order court hearing and felt there is merit to the comments made by Ms. Abushanab. She was unconvinced in listening to the arguments made by the City Attorney and feels there is tax-payer harm. Deputy City Librarian Axelrod stated of the 35 staff that LS&S made offers to, two part-time staff chose not to meet with LS&S because they had other employment plans. The third received an offer but declined it. LS&S kept to their commitment to provide all staff who accepted their offers of employment the same salary, sick leave, and vacation accrual rates as they were provided by the City. As of January 8, 2018 there were 195 active volunteers, five have left due to the transition but 19 have joined since October so we are seeing a net increase in volunteer support. Barbara Howison said LS&S currently has an open recruitment for an Administrative Assistant position. Interviews will occur when the City Librarian is back on-site from her cross-country move. The Archivist position will be posted once the City Librarian is on-site so that she can be directly involved in the recruitment. Tuesday, January 16, 2018, LS&S will bring staff together to collect HR paperwork and to introduce the new City Librarian. At this time there is no timeline for the strategic plan. They are working on developing the list of stakeholders, and the City Librarian is a key player in the process. Trustee Cameron spoke about the misconception Ms. Abushanab put forth that the Friends donation to the City is guaranteed. He clarified the Friends of the Library Board decides how much and when to provide money to the City after reviewing staff requests. There is no guarantee that this money will be awarded, and LS&S will follow the same formal request process before any donations are approved. The Friends Board agreed they would wait and see if the relationship with LS&S works well. For now It is. If they are not happy in the future, they will decide at that time to close up shop and sever their ties with the Library. President Guiles discussed the public comment from Ms. Abushanab who asserted that the Board should not continue to work with LS&S. President Guiles explained that when the City Council voted to move forward with the contract, they put the Board in the position of having to decide whether to shut the doors or move forward in order to keep library services going forthe community. He feels that service should not be interrupted because of an unwillingness to cooperate and suggested the Board continue to operate as they always have to provide answers and direction to staff whether those are City staff or LS&S staff. In response to Ms. Abushanab's contention that the City is merely using the Trustees as pawns and parading the City Librarian candidates in front of the Board for show, President Guiles affirmed that was not the case at all. In fact, the Trustees were given the opportunity to interview multiple candidates. They spent more than 2 hours interviewing and assessing whether It was a good fit and whether they should or should not endorse the 6  candidate. Trustee Gorny agreed that the Trustees and the Library should continue forward unless the court says otherwise. Trustee Salazar said it would be in the best interest of the Community for the Board to continue working with LS&S. She said there have been no issues with transparency on the part of LS&S. She explained that she had the opportunity to interview another candidate and weigh in with her feedback, and she actually feels more involved than she ever has before. She feels the Board should continue to cooperate with LS&S and see where this goes. Trustee Cameron added he was impressed with the candidate's qualifications and experience and supported the decision to hire the new City Librarian. Deputy City Librarian Axelrod spoke about the expanded hours. There is no effective date stipulated in the contract, so staff are looking to the Board for direction about how quickly they want this to happen. She stated that in her professional opinion, it would be prudent to take the necessary time to bring the City Librarian on board, fill staffing holes, work out scheduling logistics, update graphics and marketing, and potentially include the expanded hours with the role-out of the customer experience improvements that will come with the new RFID/AMH technology. It is .not recommended to implement such a change sooner than March 2018. President Guiles and Trustee Cameron felt March was reasonable, feeling it wiser to study it further before proceeding and having to make changes down the road. There was mention of how this might be impacted by the strategic planning process. Deputy City Librarian Axelrod said the Board can give the direction for LS&S to wait and incorporate it within the strategic process in order to get more public involvement if they choose. This can be further discussed at the February meeting. Agenda Item 3. Update on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) & Automated Materials Handling (AMH) Implementation Deputy City Librarian Axelrod described the process for funding large projects and the difference between Capital Improvement Projects and Annual Operating Budget costs. There will be ongoing maintenance costs as there are with all technology implementation. Trustee Cameron asked if the ongoing costs were included in the overall LS&S responsibilities as per the contract. City staff were informed of the expected costs prior to the creation of the contract, but will check to make sure and report back. The majority of the equipment has arrived but we are still waiting on a few more shipments. The expectation was to have everything installed but due to shipping delays installation and training will take place this next week. Internally the workflows and training manuals need to be formulated. This will also result in increased efficiencies in utilizing staff resources. The supervisor team will need to look at how staff will be utilized now with this new equipment. This is interconnected with 7 increasing staffing hours and in reorganizing staff. The external drop boxes along the glass wall under the portico have been removed for about a month and signage posted directing patrons where to return their items when the Library is closed. The public have responded well, and we have not received any complaints. The self-checks have now been deployed to the lobby but some equipment still needs to be installed prior to being able to use these machines. Specialists are writing a software codes to help our machines communicate fees between the ILS and the self-check machines. Testing still needs to be done on the credit card processing capabilities which needs to be resolved prior to rolling it out to the public. The last piece is to make sure the collection is fully tagged, we are about 56% complete. The customer service desk is still being built and should be installed by mid-February. The staff who are working on this project are staying so there shouldn't be any issues with this project overlapping the transition. OTHER REPORTS: Deputy City Librarian Axelrod gave an update on the Roy Garrett lawsuit. November 28, 2017: Roy and Mary Garrett file a Verified Petition for Writ of Mandate asking the court to make a finding that the LS&S Professional Services Agreement is void as a violation of state law and to restore "management of the Escondido Public Library to the Escondido Public Library Board of Trustees according to CA Education Code Section 1891 O." There were no specific management responsibilities identified for which the Garretts seek a restoration of power. - December 8, 2017: City notified Mr. Geraci (Garrett's attorney) that they intended to file a demurrer, which is a court filing that seeks to have the court rule that the lawsuit does not state a valid cause of action or grounds for relief and effectively dismisses the case. - December 19, 2017: Both parties appeared before the judge to hear the City's requesMhat the City's demurrer be heard before the implementation date of the contract because library staff had been laid off and LS&S was set to commence work under the contract. The judge determined that he did not see an emergency requiring the Court to set any hearing date before the implementation date and scheduled the demurrer hearing for January 19, 2018. December 21, 2017: City learned that the Garretts had scheduled a hearing for January 8, 2018. As of January 2, neither Mr. Geraci nor the Garretts had provided the City notice of this hearing. The City learned of it by checking the case docket online. · 8  January 8, 2018: Mr. Geraci filed a motion for a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO). The judge took the matter under submission without any indication of how he was leaning. He will give a ruling as soon as he can. President Guiles asked what will happen if the judge rules in favor of the Garrets? What happens to the staff and the state of Library services for the community? President Guiles will be out of the country at the next Board meeting. Trustee Cameron made a motion to move the meeting to February 15, 2018. Trustee Gorny seconded. Motion carried unanimously. Trustees were asked to send any upcoming travel plans to Deputy City Librarian Axelrod. Next Meeting: The meeting is scheduled for Thursday, February 15, 2018 at 2:00 PM. ADJOURNMENT: Motion by Trustee Gorny, seconded by Trustee Salazar to adjourn the meeting at ;';l"'"" 3 06 ""iu""~;;"''' f!V\.-- - ~ 9::'o..nn__a._ ~"\ Ron Guiles, President, Library Board of Trustees/Joanna Axelrod, Qeputy City Librarian 9