WHATCOM COUNTY LIBRARY SYSTEM
LIBRARY BOARD OF TRUSTEES MEETING MINUTES
Central Services, 5205 Northwest Road, Bellingham, WA 98226
January 17, 2006
(Note: “Library” refers to the Whatcom County Library System.)

Anyone requiring these minutes in an alternate format, such as large type, Braille or an audiotape, please contact the Library at 384-3150.

Call To Order: The meeting was called to order at 9:00 a.m. A quorum was determined.

Present: Board: Amory Peck, Donna-Lee Elke, Nina Cox, Janet Boyhan, Jan Hunter
Director: Joan Airoldi
Staff: Robin Barker, Geoff Fitzpatrick, Jeff Lazenby, Sally Crouse, Kathleen Neece, Sigrid Brorson
Guest: Dennis Arntzen

Public Comment: There was no public comment.

Minutes:

December 20, 2005 Regular Board Meeting

The minutes of the December 20, 2005 Regular Board Meeting were considered. Ms. Cox, referring to the first paragraph in the section entitled 2006 Interlocal Agreement with BPL, requested it be noted in the minutes that the reason the interlocal was not approved in December was because BPL needed to approve some changes WCLS had made.

Ms Elke moved to approve the minutes of the December Board meeting with the changes suggested. Seconded, carried.

The Minutes of the December 14, 2005 Finance Committee Meeting were presented.

It was moved by Ms. Cox to approve the minutes of the December 14, 2005 Finance Committee Meeting. Seconded, carried.

Financial Report and Resolutions:
a. Expenditures: Mr. Lazenby presented the financial report:

December 2005 payroll: $233,080.
December 2005 first set of claims: $159,003
December 2005 second set of claims: $110,371.
December 2005 allowed claims: $47,249.

Ms. Hunter moved to approve the expenditures and accept the financial report. Seconded, carried.

Financial Report and Resolutions:
b. Resolutions Mr. Lazenby presented the following resolutions:

01/17/06-01: In the Matter of an Inter-fund Transfer
01/17/06-02: In the Matter of Transferring Funds within the Budget

Ms. Cox moved to accept resolutions 1-2. Seconded, carried.

New Construction Mr. Lazenby reported that the amount of new construction received for Fiscal Year 2006 will be approximately $36,250 less than estimated for the Final 2006 Budget. One reason the actual new construction amount is less than estimated is that the Library did not receive any state assessed utility money for 2006. This is due to the Qwest Communications settlement with the State Department of Revenue. Qwest will be receiving a tax refund for four tax years based on the settlement. Mr. Lazenby stated that he will be meeting with the County Assessor to determine the refund’s impact on the Library.

No further action was taken.

Nomination of Officers:
Board of Trustees 2006 Ms. Peck accepted the nomination of Chair of the Board for another year (nominated by Ms. Cox).

Ms. Peck interviewed the Trustees about their committee involvements. All are very happy with their assignments at the moment and many are just getting started with significant projects.

By consensus the Board decided to submit a ballot next month to elect the officers and assign the committees for 2006 as they have been in 2005.

Ms. Elke suggested submitting a press release when everything is officially decided.

Facilities Policy Mr. Lazenby informed the Board that he will be working on the Facilities Contracts this year. Many of the contracts have outdated information, do not have language about timelines, or are missing clauses on insurance and indemnification. He will be routing the contracts to the attorney for review and many will be revised this year.

A new Facilities Policy was presented for the Board’s consideration. The consensus of the discussion was that the Trustees are comfortable with having the Director sign the contracts, but they want to be informed about the contents of the contracts. Some, like Ms. Boyhan, want the information distilled down into pertinent details. Others, like Ms. Cox, would prefer to read the entire contract. The Board members requested they receive this information in their Board Meeting Packets whenever a contract is signed.

Ms. Hunter moved that the Facilities Policy be approved. Seconded, carried.

Request for State Funds Ms. Airoldi reported that she has heard from Georgina Furlong-Head and Frances Barbagallo about requests for state funds for the respective building projects in the Kendall area and in Deming. The Deming Friends have already made a request for $200,000. Ms. Airoldi’s recommendation is that the Board serve as fiscal agent for either or both of these requests, depending on need and after checking with the Library’s attorney. With the short legislative session, a decision is needed today since the February meeting will be after the deadline for submitting requests to the State.

The Board discussed the amount of the request and the fact that receiving this state money would help both projects receive additional grants in the future.

The current status of the North Fork project was presented. In the final plan, the library’s portion of the design was reduced to 2200 square feet. This seriously compromises the benefit the library will receive by participating in the project. Ownership issues are among the questions that need to be resolved. Others are: the question of the ability of WCLS to provide money for building projects, the legality of doing so, and being able to follow through for other projects in the county once a precedent is established.

Ms. Elke inquired about involving the Foundation in this process.

Moved by Ms. Elke to authorize Ms. Airoldi to proceed with pursuing requests for funding with the State of Washington for the Maple Falls and Deming projects forthwith. Seconded, carried.

Contract with WCLS Foundation The Board was not able to consider the Contract with the WCLS Foundation because it has not yet been reviewed by the lawyer. The contract will be taken up at the February meeting.

Ms. Hunter reported that the Foundation now has a full slate of officers. They have adopted the Beginning with Books Project, thus taking it out of the general fund as recommended by the auditors. Projects they are currently working on include producing documents and pamphlets to share the Foundation mission with the public, get the 501(c)(3) approved soon, do their first big fundraiser in the fall, establish a pattern of doing a fundraiser and an annual meeting in the fall. A graphic artist will be volunteering her services.

Self-check RFP Committee
Report and Recommendation Ms. Barker reported that she received eight replies to her RFP for self-check systems. Four products were examined, including three of the cheapest ones.

The Self-check Committee is recommending the 3M self-check units which are the same as what is currently being used in Lynden, but different than what is being used at BPL. BPL purchased separate software and hardware and spent a lot of time setting up and configuring the units. The amount of time needed to configure the units and train staff with the 3M product is next to nil and the long-term cost over 5 years is virtually the same. Ms. Airoldi expressed a desire to avoid exposing the staff to any more frustration with a product that does not work right away.

A budget of $100,000 has been set for this project. Ms. Barker is asking for $52,510.34 to purchase six units at this time.

It was moved by Ms. Elke to accept the recommendation of the Self-check Committee. Seconded, carried.

The Board took a 15 minute break at 10:30.

Following the break, Ms. Airoldi mentioned that lawyer Deborra Garrett has left a phone message that the contract with the Foundation looks good and she doesn’t expect to have any significant changes.

Bouquets:

Kathleen Neece
20 years of service Kathleen Neece was honored for 20 years of service to the Library. She started in October 1985 as a PSA. Sigrid Brorson described Ms. Neece as a very warm and gracious person who loves to learn. She loves to create eye catching displays and was eager to learn the new computer system. She is great on a committee. As a former school bus driver, she was a natural for mobile services. She has been an outstanding manager for mobile services, building the staff into a real team. Ms. Brorson said it was very difficult for the Island Branch to give her up, but we hope to have her in mobile services for many more years.

Ms. Neece said she feels extremely lucky to have fallen into library service, especially at WCLS where the staff is so supportive.

WCLS Planning Ms. Airoldi distributed the WCLS Long Range Plan: Check-in and Planning Short Form; January 2006 highlighting unfinished business specifically relating to gathering information about our services from the current long range plan. Ms. Peck, Ms. Elke and staff have met to begin the process of updating the plan that covers 2002 through 2007.

She asked the Board to consider the purpose behind preparing a long range plan, what changes need to be made, how fast, and why.

Last time the Long Range Plan was prepared, a consultant was hired. Ms. Airoldi asked how the consultant had been used and what the process was that produced the current plan. Discussion followed.

The concept of strategic planning was addressed and handouts defining this were distributed. Among the benefits is flexibility during changing times. The Fort Vancouver Library strategic plan was also distributed.

Ms. Airoldi listed the following service areas that individual plans are needed to help look to the future. These include: advocacy, technology, facilities, youth, system reference, training, and branch plans.

Discussion included the following suggestions:
• Modify the mission statement, out of that comes the strategic plan and out of that comes the smaller plans.
• It seems like this method needs to come from the bottom up, not the top down. We would need to know the branch and departmental needs before the long range planning is done.
• The ideal is that the vision comes from both the grassroots levels and from projections and trends within the library field.
• The Board has the responsibility to create the direction—the parameters within which WCLS operates. Otherwise, the specifics of each area are done by each department in a vacuum. You don’t gather all the information and then determine the parameters; it must come from both directions. What are the key values and goals we as a Board are trying to get to? If we know that, then we know what everything is reaching toward.

Ms. Airoldi thinks the library should consider bringing in a consultant with expertise in strategic planning. Ms. Cox wants help from someone with experience with rural libraries. Ms. Hunter did not necessarily agree and cautioned that consultants vary in their effectiveness. Ms. Elke said hiring someone to facilitate the discussion was very valuable in the IBB process. She thinks it would be helpful with a strategic planning process. Ms. Boyhan suggested getting help from Western Washington University.

It was decided that Ms. Airoldi will research the cost of a facilitator with the help of Ms. Peck and Ms. Elke. There was also the suggestion of a retreat when lots of ideas can be submitted and ironed out and the idea of a vision statement can be considered. Several Trustees liked the retreat idea.

Committee Reports: Facilities: Ms. Hunter and Ms. Cox reported that the members of the Facilities Committee are all progressing on their various assignments. Their next meeting is scheduled for Feb. 14th. After that, they are going to attempt to meet more frequently, perhaps twice a month.

Personnel: Ms. Elke and Ms. Boyhan noted that the total cost of the hours spent on negotiating the Union contract was $11,400.

Advocacy: Ms. Elke and Ms. Hunter reported that the Advocacy Committee is progressing though its projects. They are gathering information for a database of professionals who are willing to volunteer their services to help the Library. Mr. Fitzpatrick has helped to choose a database program and has found someone who will volunteer to manage the database as well as set it up. This will be a big help! The committee is also working on a mission statement.

Policy: Ms. Cox and Ms. Peck have set a date for revisiting the ethics work. Mr. Lazenby’s goal for reviewing all the fiscal policies is the end of 2006.

WLA Legislative Agenda The Board members discussed who would be able to attend the 2006 Legislative Day and worked out details. Ms. Airoldi mentioned Governor Gregoire’s recent statements on her priority for early childhood learning. With the WCLS focus on youth services, we need to communicate to our legislators what we are already doing.
Levy Lid Lift legislation which did not pass last year is being re-introduced for 2006.

Library News: Mr. Fitzpatrick reported that the internet connection to Lummi Island was knocked out recently for about eight days by a lightening strike. Service has been restored. Additionally, the Blaine Library is moving from a wireless to a fiber optic connection. He expects Blaine staff will be thrilled with the change.

Ms. Brorson reported that there has been lots of positive response from patrons to the new open hours at Maple Falls and Blaine.

Ms. Airoldi wanted to applaud the various Friends groups around the System for all of their extra work in planning activities in their Libraries. Their efforts mean so much to their communities!

Director’s Report Ms. Airoldi presented her Director’s Report. Topics included:
1. A Letter to the Editor in the Northern Light requesting some kind of library service to the Birch Bay area. The Board appreciated the spirit in which the letter was written.
2. Incident Reports: The number has grown dramatically in the last two years. Most are in the areas of theft and property damage.
3. Ms. Airoldi will be attending the ALA conference.
4. Top 10 Library Stories of 2005: show the challenges ahead.
Announcements Ms. Hunter requested any fundraising ideas that the Foundation might use for its big capital fundraising drive in the fall.

Ms. Peck shared a letter she received which expressed appreciation of the steps the Library has taken in Lynden to protect children from inadvertent viewing of internet material being viewed by adults.

February 21, 2006 Board Meeting The February Board meeting will begin at 9:00 a.m. at the Maple Falls Branch.

Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 11:55 a.m.