HomeMy WebLinkAbout12-04-2019 minutes
COLUMBIA HEIGHTS PUBLIC LIBRARY
3939 Central Ave NE, Columbia Heights, MN 55421
BOARD OF TRUSTEES: MEETING MINUTES
Wednesday, December 4th, 2019
Approved
1/8/2019
The meeting was called to order in the History Room by Chair, Catherine Vesley at 5:32pm. Members present: Catherine
Vesley; Patricia Sowada; Tricia Conway; Stephen Smith; Christopher Polley; and City Council Liaison, Connie Buesgens.
Also in attendance: Renee Dougherty (Library Director), and Nick Olberding (Recording Secretary).
The Minutes of the November 6th, 2019 Board Meeting were approved. The Board wanted to add how appreciative they
are for me making sense of all the discussions, and compiling it in to clear minutes. Thank you!
Bill Lists dated November 6th & 20th, 2019 were reviewed. Each was moved, seconded, and approved.
Questions and discussions based on Bills and Accounting:
Lock Repair: Tricia was worried this expense meant that there was an attempted break-in, but it was just the
door lock between the library and lobby wore out and could not be unlocked with the key anymore. I had
discovered it before we opened one morning when I went out to retrieve the newspapers and couldn’t get back
in until a fellow staff member let me back in.
Book Covers: These are the plastic covers that are applied to all books with dust jackets.
2280 (Vehicle Repair/Parts): Unbudgeted expense related to landscaping equipment, charged to us by the Public
Works Department.
Old Business:
1. Strategic Planning: Last month, Renee expressed that she had some reservations with the new Mission
Statement (felt our Collections should be mentioned in the mission, and could use some fine tuning to better
encompass our full mission). Since then, Renee and Steve each re-wrote an alternate version for the Board to
weigh in on.
Steve: The Columbia Heights Public Library works with the community to discover diverse learning
opportunities through access to professional in-house staff and services, a state of the art facility, and
quality programming.
Renee: The Columbia Heights Public Library: serving the individual and the community with
responsive collections, innovative programming, professional staff, and access to resources.
The Board liked both, but ultimately preferred Renee’s version which better conveyed our strengths and
purposes. The Key Objectives and Values were then reviewed with no objections. With everything in order, Pat
Sowada made a motion to approve the Strategic Plan Vision, Mission, Key Objectives, and Values; Tricia
seconded, and all were in favor. Now it is up to the dedicated Library staff/stakeholders to move forward with
these as our guidance.
New Business:
1. Staffing Update: The Library had posted a Page position from November 6-27, and received 6 applications (quite a
few less than from previous postings). Renee was seeking advice from the Board as to whether it would be best to
follow through and interview some or all of the candidates (some of which are highly overqualified; in the past this
has generally been a job entry level for high school/college students), or to extend the application deadline by
reposting. The Board made some good points about the difficulty in finding applicants by many businesses due to
low unemployment, increased minimum wages in Minneapolis, and it being the holiday season. Holiday season
and the end-of-calendar/fiscal year also means that Renee and the staff are stretched thin and very busy; hiring
takes a lot of time and investment, and we need to know we are making an offer to a solid good fitting candidate.
Unfortunately, we’ve had multiple new hires leave soon after the 1-month of training (either because they don’t
heed our warning of how much work it really is, or they use us as a way-station while looking for full-time work
elsewhere), which sets us further back than we were. After hearing the input from the Board, Renee will be taking
a few days to take it under consideration, weigh the options, and decide what strategy to employ.
2. 2020 Fee Schedule: The Board was presented with the list of fines/fees for the year 2020, which has not changed
much over the years; the only updates this year are the processing fee for damaged/lost items (dictated by the
Anoka County Library and already in effect…Books up from $5-to-$8, and Audio/Video media up from $7.50-to-
$10), and the afterhours price-per-hour for the Community Room (from $25-to-$30). The Board had no problems
with these increases, although they think the Community Room price is likely still too low (based on the price of
other spaces resolvable by the public), but we’ll see what kind of reaction we get from groups from this small
increase. Catherine motioned to approve the 2020 Fee Schedule, Pat Sowada seconded; all were in favor.
This Fee Schedule also brought up a bit of discussion regarding fines and the barriers they may cause to
would-be patrons. There was a practical back-and-forth discussion about fines being a barrier to lower
income individuals; a reason why a child may stop reading altogether (does allowing children to check out
50-items at a time set them up for failure); fines being a motivator to return items; are fines a good
responsibility-builder.
Fine Elimination: Anoka County Library has a group investigating fines, and are leaning towards eliminating
them for juveniles as a possible first stage. We don’t know what the group has found yet, or how long it
will take them, be we would likely be following suit on whatever they decide.
Collection Services: Worth it? This procedure was prompted by ACL around 2011 (before Renee Dougherty
became Director). We send individuals to Collections if they’ve sustained $75 in fines for 90 days (ACL
refers at $25); the cost to us is currently $8.95/patron (approximately $7,800 for the 869 accounts over 8+
years); those 869 patrons accounted for $167,893 in uncollected fees/material, of which we have
successfully recovered $21,667 in fees and $41,578 in material (this doesn’t mean all was recovered
directly from Collection Service intervention).
Items from the Floor:
Aileen Sturdevant (83): Passed away over the weekend; Memorial Services are scheduled for Monday, December
9th, 11am, at Immaculate Conception Church. Aileen is the wife of long-time Mayor Joseph Sturdevant.
Joint Library Board Meeting: County Commissioner Mandy Meisner has expressed that she would like to hold a
joint Library Board Meeting between Columbia Heights and the Anoka County Library Board. Details to come
later, as we are not sure specifically whether it will be a full joint meeting, or members from each Board rotating
attendance at each other’s meetings, or how it will affect meetings in the future.
Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year. Till 2020, Happy Holidays…
There being no further business, a motion to adjourn was made at 6:41pm by Catherine Vesley, and seconded.
Respectfully submitted,
Nicholas P. Olberding
Recording Secretary, Library Board of Trustee