Library Board of Trustees

MEETING OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES MARY RILEY STYLES PUBLIC LIBRARY Held in the Mary Riley Styles Public Library 120 N. Virginia Avenue Falls Church, VA 22046 February 17, 2016 1. CALL TO ORDER Board Chair Brad Gemand called the meeting to order at 7:00p.m. The following Board members attended the meeting: Brad Gemand Chet DeLong Ed Rose Jeff Peterson Stephanie Oppenheimer Don Camp Terry Zawacki City Attorney Carol McCoskrie, Councilwoman Karen Oliver, Library Director, Mary McMahon, and her assistant, Claudia Gutierrez, were also present. 2. RECEIPT OF PETITIONS None. 3. APPROVAL OF THE DRAFT DECEMBER 16, 2015 MEETING MINUTES AND DRAFT JANUARY 20, 2016 MEETING MINUTES Upon a motion made duly and seconded, the Library Board unanimously approved the draft December 16, 2015 meeting minutes and the January 20, 2016 meeting minutes, both with minor changes. 4. ARTS AND CULTURAL DISTRICT TASK FORCE (CATCH) REPORT No report. 5. LIBRARY FOUNDATION REPORT Don Camp informed the Board that the 2015 donations to the Foundation was $2,000 over the previous year in addition to the gift from Ms. Mary Hassan. He said that the Foundation raised approximately $26,000 this past year, has $250,000 in a mutual fund and $100,000 in a CD in a Burke & Herbert account, which will be invested into mutual funds shortly, and $28,000 in the checking account. The Foundation gave $19,500 to the library from the $28,000 to purchase the InMagic database for the Local History room. He also said that since the Foundation has a Pay Pal account, it has raised over $8,000 via that method. Don informed the Board that the Foundation has also started accepting stock certificates as a form of donation. The Foundation's first gift was 15 shares of DuPont worth about $900. The Foundation now has a brokerage account which it is using to hold and/or invest donated stock shares. Don also informed the Board that the Foundation is in the process of incorporating from a trust into a non-profit corporation and will remain a 50l(c) (3) charitable organization. A Board member asked what the Foundation can give to the library. Don said that it can 1 help the library for items recommended by the Director, however, the Foundation's help must be considered supplemental and does not replace funding that should come from the City for library needs. Some of the items that the Foundation has funded in the past have included: Summer Reading Program prizes, books, DVDs, eBooks and eAudiobooks, equipment such as a public self-checkout machine, and half of the annual Free gal (a downloadable music database available to the public) subscription. The InMagic database was an unmet library need, and the Foundation provided the $19,500 for its purchase. 6. CITY ATTORNEY CAROL MCCOSKRIE RE ROLES/RESPONSIBILITIES OF LIBRARY BOARD AND STAFF FOR LIBRARY BUILDING REFERENDUM The City Attorney, Carol McCoskrie, was present to talk with the Board about what the Board and library staff can and cannot do in regard to the library bond referendum which may occur in November, 2016. The rules are outlined in the Code of Virginia §24.2-687 (2013) and state that the Board and library staff cannot spend public money or use public resources to advocate for or against the referendum. For example, the Board and staff may not use staff time, library space or resources, paper, copies or anything that is paid with public money to lobby or advocate for the passage of the referendum. Carol also indicated that they can advocate on their own time as a public citizen, but they must be very clear when doing so that they are acting/speaking as a private citizen, and not as a member of the Library Board of Trustees or a library staff member. She also said that the City Attorney will write an explanation of the bond question in a neutral 500 word statement which does not advocate passage or defeat of referendum question. The wording will be written in plain English and must be completed by early July so that it can be submitted to Council for approval and adopt a resolution so that it can then go forward to the Court for approval. After that occurs, the "question" is then officially placed on the November ballot. A Board member asked if it will be a single referendum (only the library project) or include other bond referendums, and Carol said that has not been decided yet. It was also noted that the cost of the library project may not be more than 10% of the City's total operating budget, which then automatically requires a referendum; however, in previous years the Planning Commission stated that it should go to referendum. The Director asked when the bonds would be issued since the library project straddles two fiscal years (FY18 and FY19), and if the bonds could be issued at the end ofFY17 so that the project is ready to start at the beginning of the FY18 fiscal year. Carol felt that this could be accommodated, but could make no promises. The Library Director then said that the information about the renovation-expansion project will be shown in two videos that show the two options proposed for the expansion/renovation and wondered if the videos could remain on the library's website. Carol said that as long as they presented just the facts of the project and did not advocate for the passage of the referendum, the information could remain on the website. Carol also said that the Library Foundation could advocate for passage of the referendum, and that it could also pay for printing, mailings etc. as long as only Foundation monies are used to do so. 7. DRAFT INTERNET, WI-FI, AND COMPUTER USE POLICY REVISION-FIRST READING The Board discussed the revised Draft Internet, Wi-Fi, and Computer Use Policy and made some suggestions and changes. The Director will include them and bring the policy back to the next Board meeting for another first reading. No vote was taken to approve the policy (with changes) on this first reading. 8. LIBRARY REPORT AND ANNOUNCEMENTS • The Director informed the Board that two temporary positions had been filled. Another 2  position is left to be filled --the 20 hour week temporary Library Assistant II position for the Local History Room. The Youth Services temporary Library Assistant I candidate is in the process of a background check and drug test and if successfully completed, tentatively will begin on Monday, February 22,2016. • There was gutter and downspout damage in the front of the building during the January snow storm. The broken pieces have been taken down, and the Public Works staff is in the process of getting quotes to replace them. • Staff received the Run Hide, Fight training on how to respond to an active shooter situation. The training was given by Fire Marshal Tom Polera and Lieutenant Joe Carter of the Falls Church Police Department. The Director also said that there will be additional training for staff on how to deal with difficult patrons and situations. • Board Chair, Brad Gemand, presented the Library's 2015 Annual Report to Council last week. It was well received. • The Director informed the Board that she closed the library on Sunday, February 7, 2016, because the integrated library system (Millennium by Innovative Interfaces, Inc.) lost connectivity mid-day on Saturday, February 6, 2016. Staff could not access patron accounts, give out new library cards, check items in, take money for fines/fees, and fmd information in the catalog. Staff had to handwrite all the barcodes of items that were checked out which then had to be individually entered into the database once the system came up. Thousands of books piled up that needed to be checked in, and there was no space left to put more items for check in. Since Sunday is traditionally such a busy day, the problems would have compounded even more significantly, so she decided to close on Sunday. The system did not come back online until 5:00p.m. on Sunday. The library opened on time on Monday, and staff spent the entire day inputting the data into the database and checking items in. Thanks to help from the City's Office of Communication, the closed notice for Sunday was posted on the library's and City's websites as well as Facebook and Twitter well in advance of the scheduled opening. Staff also put signs up on the doors and left a recorded message on the main library telephone line. To date Innovative has not been able to find the cause of the outage, but is monitoring the system for the next two weeks for any malfunctions or errors. To compound the problem, the notices that staff sent to the City's IT Department alerting them to the problems on Saturday were corrupted and did not reach them. The problem was finally discovered by Innovative 17 hours after it first occurred, and they were able to reboot the system. The City's IT Department also tracked down the problem with the emails and corrected it so they should again receive messages when we have an emergency IT outage. • There will be a Council retreat this Saturday, February 20, 2016, at the Thomas Jefferson Elementary School Library at 9:00a.m. As part of that retreat, Council will also talk with Chairs of Boards and Commissions about the communication between Boards and Commissions and Council. Library Board Chair, Brad Gemand, will attend for that discussion. • National Library Week will be April10-16, 2016. The Director asked the Board for permission to have a fine free week during that time. Upon a motion made duly and seconded, the Library Board unanimously approved the Fine Free week during the National Library week, Apri110-16, 2016. • The Director informed the Board that the City's new Human Resources Director has been hired. Her name is Diane Lowther. She will begin on Monday, February 22, 2016. The City 3  is also interviewing for the new Purchasing Manager. • The Director announced that there will be a Town Hall meeting for the public on the proposed FY17 City operating budget and the CIP at the Community Center at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, March 19, 2016. Each department will have a display board similar to what was done last year, and the public can stop and talk with staff about each department's budget and/or CIP requests. When it gets closer to that date, the Director will send out a reminder to the Board so they can attend. 9. BUSINESS NOT ON THE AGENDA The Board Chair mentioned that Jeff Peterson had some questions about the mechanics of the CIP. The answers to his questions and possible additional information from the City will be put on the Agenda for the Board's next meeting. The Chair also gave a brief report on how the meeting with the Planning Commission in regard to the library's CIP request went the previous evening. He noted that the Commission said they knew about the project and really didn't need to hear the same information as previously presented. However, they then wanted to talk about the potential parking deck CIP proposal. Cindy Mester reported on the parking survey that was done, and that the recommendation from that study was that there was plenty of on street parking that was not used and that a leased parking solution would benefit the City for the needed spaces for the library, court day, and general parking in the area. Cindy then noted that the parking deck proposal was still included in the FY20 17 CIP, but moved from FY18 to FY21 so that the leased parking pilot project and the City Hall parking deck would have time to be used and able to gauge if they impact the need for a parking deck at 313 Park Avenue. The Planning Commission seemed concerned that the parking deck had been moved so far out in the CIP process. They did ask the Library Board how they felt about it. Brad said that the Board was concerned that there would not be a definitive parking solution (costs, agreement with property owners, etc.) before the November 2016 referendum. He said that it would be very difficult to talk with the public about that aspect. Councilwoman Karen Oliver said that the parking deck and the library expansion/renovation are two separate projects, so moving the parking deck to the end of the CIP planning timeframe should not hurt the library's referendum chances. The Board also expressed concern about the possible pairing of the school expansion project and the library expansion/renovation project on the same bond referendum ballot. No decision has been made as yet about how the funding for the school projects will done. It could be done two very different ways-and one way would not require a bond referendum (if the developer builds the school and develops the commercial property). If the City decides to build the school portion and only have a developer do the commercial property project, then a bond referendum would be required to fund the schools and might happen at the same time as the library bond referendum takes place. A decision about how the school projects will be funded is due momentarily. The Board will discuss both that and the answers to Jeffs questions at the next Board meeting. 12. ADJOURNMENT There being no further business, upon a motion duly made and seconded, the Board of Trustees voted unanimously to adjourn the meeting at 8:17p.m. 4 Respectfully submitted, Mary W. McMahon Library Director Approved: BJ:;i6and,~ Copies: Board of Trustees, City Manager, Library Reference Desk, Staff Bulletin Board, City Clerk, Library Web Page The City of Falls Church is committed to the letter and spirit ofthe Americans with Disabilities Act. To request a reasonable accommodation for any type of disability, call 703-248-5032, TTY 711. 5