Steve Brandt writes in todays strib about the Library Board's 6-0 vote to not renew Mary Lawson's contract as director. It makes for interesting discussion when you look at the reasons sited.
The major stated reason for the non-renewal is that Ms. Lawson had pursued another job opening in Florida earlier this year. I have a hard time swallowing this one. Carol Johnson looks at another job, she gets a raise. Mary Lawson makes it to the final cut in Orlando, and she gets terminated? I don't think so. A second reason stated by President Savran for the action was that "the board wanted to move in a new direction." Pardon my confusion but we are sitting in the first years of a ten year program to entirely rebuild or renovate the entire Minneapolis Public Library system. If this is the reason for her termination than exactly what new direction does the board want to head? Is there something we, as the taxpayers that supported the $140 million dollar referendum, should know? The last reason stated was that some board members felt they need someone who could "better communicate with the board, City Hall and the public." This might have some substance. Certainly however Mary can't be blamed for poor communication to the public concerning the referendum. It passed with substantial support. I do believe the Internet controversy was not handled very well in the public eye, but other than a few library or Internet advocates did any significant portion of the public really care? As to communicating with the board she has been reporting as their director for seven years and as head of Community Libraries for probably ten years before that. Are we to believe that her communication skills somehow decreased suddenly? This seems doubly interesting with Mary's comment about the action saying she was "puzzled by the board's lack of communication to me" as well as that she had "been given no specific reason" for the action. Is anyone communicating with anyone else at our Library? Perhaps they should try using e-mail if they find personal communications difficult. I wonder if Mary is being set up as the fall person for when the Board "discovers" that they don't have the finances available to adequately run their newly remodeled libraries. That would be a hard sale however since it was Mary that first tried to push the referendum for the Central Library only, leaving the community libraries off due to their unanswered funding questions. It would also be a hard sale as it is Mary's signature on budget requests that predict the over $4 million dollar projected operating shortfall upon the completion of all the libraries. She was communicating the information to the city, was the Board not hearing the message? The one fault I would put at Mary's feet is that she was too willing to defend the position that the budget issue could be resolved somehow. That they would just run a tighter ship if they had to. It took way to much effort to get her to acknowledge that what was really needed was more revenue. Or perhaps a different plan for the community libraries altogether. Harder questions should have been asked before the referendum was approved. Better answers should have been demanded. These questions and answers were the responsibility of Mary, but they were the responsibility of the Library Board as well. Perhaps now the Board will begin searching for those financial answers. Lets try to have some of those answers before a new director is hired, or at least make sure the new director knows what the hard questions are. Bob Gustafson 13th __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Check out Yahoo! Shopping and Yahoo! Auctions for all of your unique holiday gifts! Buy at http://shopping.yahoo.com or bid at http://auctions.yahoo.com _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
