Above, Inside Leach Library in Londonderry. Katharine Webster photo
By KATHARINE WEBSTER, InDepthNH.org
The culture wars have come for Londonderry’s public library.
A Leach Library trustee called the police about 15 minutes into a special meeting the board’s conservative majority called for Saturday that was standing room only.
The ruckus broke out after the library staff member who gathers all of the financial data for the treasurer’s report spoke during the public comment period about her concerns with delays in getting her reports reviewed by board treasurer Jan McLaughlin – and discovering that four checks were missing from May’s bank statement.
Colleen Magdziarz, senior library technician, said she learned that three of the checks had been voided because of errors. But one, written by McLaughlin to herself to cover copying costs for some of the financial reports, was still missing, with the end of the fiscal year coming up fast.
“It’s OK. We are all human; we all make mistakes, but at the very least … a memo has to be written for the voided check with all the pertinent information,” Magdziarz said. She said she was not trying to get McLaughlin in trouble, but the checks must be “kept for the auditor so there is a paper trail.”
Trustee Chair Liz Thomas, a former chair of the Londonderry Republican Committee and wife of long-time state Rep. Douglas Thomas, R-Londonderry, called time on Magdziarz before she had finished her statement.
When others offered to post the full statement online, Thomas announced that she was going to speak, although she had previously said that she would not talk during the public comment period.
“How dare anyone come here and suggest, after (library director) Erin (Matlin) has already reported that she fixed it, there might have been an impropriety?” Thomas said. “How dare they come up in public in a recorded session and make statements like that?”
Someone in the crowd interrupted her.
“Point of order: You said in the beginning that you were going to not say anything,” the woman said. “Why are you continuing to speak?”
Thomas jumped to her feet and banged her gavel repeatedly, calling the woman out of order and giving her three warnings to stop speaking while the woman kept talking and repeated “Point of order.” Thomas then ordered.
“Nope, I’m not going to leave,” the woman said.
“Do I need to call the police?” Thomas asked.
“Oh, please,” the woman said.
But Thomas had already asked trustee Christine Fitzgerald to call the cops. About 10 minutes later, two officers showed up. Thomas met them in the hallway outside the meeting room, spoke with them briefly and sent them away.
While the meeting had calmed down, barbed comments continued to fly, both among the trustees and from members of the public, who were afforded another chance to speak at the end of the meeting.
“What a circus this was,” said resident Tara Myles, who criticized the trustees for failing to do their homework before meetings and wasting people’s time.
“You’re nickel and diming this library to death,” said Erica Laue, a former library trustee candidate who came in fifth in an eight-way race for three seats earlier this year.
Londonderry Republicans and Statehouse Bills on Libraries
Indeed, most of the meeting agenda and debate revolved around finances. Tensions have been running high since four fiscal conservatives took control of the seven-person board, with an extra meeting being called every month since Thomas became board chair earlier this year and meetings routinely running nearly twice as long as scheduled.
Londonderry is, in many ways, the power center of New Hampshire’s increasingly conservative Republican Party. Both House Speaker Sherm Packard and Senate President Sharon Carson represent Londonderry, and they have helped to pass several bills opposed by most librarians, school boards and civil libertarians, including two co-sponsored by state Rep. Kristine Perez, R-Londonderry, who was at Saturday’s meeting.
House Bill 324, which has passed both chambers and is now before Gov. Kelly Ayotte, will make it easier for parents to get “obscene or harmful sexual materials” removed from schools.
House Bill 273, which was ironed out in a conference committee on Monday, will require librarians to provide parents with access to their minor children’s library records, even if they are teenagers who are old enough to get their own library cards.
Opponents say the bills will burden librarians and school boards and are aimed at removing or restricting library materials with LGBTQ+ themes and characters.
However, Thomas opened the meeting by saying she had heard from worried members of the public that the Leach Library trustees were considering banning books. Not true, she said.
“It will not be done. It’s not a concern,” she said.
Emergency Meeting or Special Meeting?
Saturday’s “special meeting” was called by the four conservative trustees over the objections of the other three, who had to cancel vacation plans and reschedule their jobs to attend.
The minority also alerted community members to what they called an “emergency meeting.” The library’s supporters turned out in force, with some saying they were afraid the conservative majority was trying to fire Matlin, the library director, or make her job so difficult that she would leave.
The library’s former director of children’s services, Kim Bears, who stepped down last year as chair of the board of trustees for medical reasons, cried as she spoke during the public comment period about her distress over federal, state and local cuts to library services – and attacks on librarians.
“All we want to do is give the people of this town the best library that they could have, that they deserve. We’re not hiding anything; we’re not out to get anybody,” Bears said.
“You don’t know how wonderful this staff is. You don’t know how lucky you all are. … I just want you people, please, to just stop,” she told the trustees, to loud applause from the crowd.
But the only conservative member of the public to speak, Richard Bielinski, criticized Matlin for using money from other budget lines to pay for more books and programs.
“The business end of this library is an absolute mess,” Bielinski said.
Matlin pointed out that the library has a bottom-line budget and that she had not overspent.
The fiscally conservative trustees later discussed the various line items, and also said that they wanted the librarians to keep better track of all donations, including writing down every book that is donated.
Matlin said that neither the library’s auditor nor the state attorney general’s office required that level of detail.
“There’s no possible way we can write down every book,” Matlin said.
“Your job is to gather donations. Our job is to follow the RSAs,” Thomas replied. “We’re going to follow the letter of the law.”
And so it went. At one point, Thomas accused Matlin of submitting a financial report to the auditors that had not gone through the trustees. Matlin said that the board had, in fact, seen and approved the report.
“And what we’re telling you is, from now on we’re not going to blindly approve something,” Thomas shot back. “We’re going to track it. You’re objecting to us following the law and doing our jobs.”
“I’m not,” Matlin protested.
Thomas then called on Ryan, who lectured Matlin about her responsibilities for every last pen and pencil.
“Everything in this library is an asset. The pens upstairs are an asset; the flag is an asset,” Ryan said. “Every single asset in this library has to be accounted for publicly. Every single thing that comes in technically belongs to the taxpayers, and you have to have a record to say how it was disposed of and what was here. … Yes, it’s a pain, but that is the way you have to do it.”
Board secretary Beth Marrocco said she was concerned that the same board members who were asking for more “fiscal responsibility” did not know that it was illegal for a trustee to write a check to herself, as McLaughlin had done.
When Thomas said that then she would write a check to reimburse McLaughlin for her copying costs, Marrocco said that was illegal, too. Trustees Helen Palmieri and Nancy Hendricks also pushed back.
At one point, Matlin covered her face with her hands when Thomas brought up the idea of writing up a contract for her position. Marrocco said that Matlin was not hired under a contract, and the board could not create one retroactively.
Ultimately, Matlin asked the trustees to email her a list of all her new responsibilities, so she would know exactly what was expected. She also said repeatedly that she had not been consulted about the effects on library staff of all the proposed changes.
“I’m very concerned,” she said. “I want clear direction from you on what I need to do so I’m not accused of not doing something.”
The Last Word
The public had the final word – and they were not happy. Myles requested that Thomas bring the town attorney or another qualified person to meetings who could explain what state law actually requires, since Thomas and McLaughlin were unable to cite the state laws they said they were following.
“You couldn’t pay me a million dollars to sit in Erin’s seat the way you guys treat her,” Myles said.
Londonderry Budget Committee member Patrick El-Azem cited and read the state law that says library staff only need to report the total number of donated books.
Laue said the board needed to follow laws about writing themselves checks and accused them of holding at least one, unnoticed illegal meeting.
She also said that Londonderry citizens had voted to expand, not cut, library services, and she expressed frustration that board members were dragging their feet in hiring the new, fully qualified, part-time children’s librarian that voters had approved.
“The fact that you are not standing up for the library … is appalling. You are not doing your jobs,” she said. “This inept, unbelievably controlling micromanaging pattern is going to cost you your employees en masse, and you will have absolutely no capacity to replace them because you won’t be able to find anybody who’s going to work for you.”
This time, all of the trustees listened in silence before finally adjourning the meeting, just in time to set up the room for another library program.