MY TURN: Reckless CLN trustee actions
Risk from actions of the board majority of the Community Library Network continue to rise. Trustees Ottosen, Plass and Hanley are adding liability and eroding CLN’s safeguards; they are actively harming the library network. In just six months they’ve violated agreements, cut funding while increasing expenses, disregarded legal advice, and tried to demoralize staff.
Recently they revised a policy on Materials Selection that was only a year old. They created a separate Materials Withdrawal policy. The board majority rushed to approve these despite one trustee’s caution, another trustee’s absence, and no legal advice. The board majority was unwilling to even listen to staff reservations about implementation.
Policy author, Vice Chair Tom Hanley, added wording he said is “basically a legal sentence…that says we’re not doing this because we don’t like ‘Gender Queer’ or whatever goofy books are out there.” Mr. Hanley is not an attorney. CLN’s attorney Colton Boyles was absent. The changes Mr. Boyles had encouraged to an earlier version were not made.
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