Article from the Annandale blog.
The
biggest point of contention in the MOU, adopted by the Library Board of Trustees in January, is a
provision requiring Friends groups to turn over all their financial records to
the FCPL.
Friends groups believe
the MOU is one-sided and say they would sign if they have a chance to make some
modifications – but they’ve told they either have to sign it as is or be
evicted. “We’re being told it’s our way or the highway,” says Charles Keener
of the Friends of the Tysons-Pimmit Regional Library.
The Tysons Friends
group, which has not signed the MOU, passed out flyers at its book sale earlier
this month stating, “this may be our final book sale.”
The Friends of the
George Mason, Reston, Centreville, Thomas Jefferson, and Kingstowne libraries
also have not signed the MOU.
According to FCPL
Director Jessica Hudson, the Kings Park, Dolly Madison, Martha Washington,
Lorton, and City of Fairfax libraries have signed.
The Friends of Woodrow Wilson Library have also
signed the MOU, reports Pat Jack of the Friends group. “We’re very small
potatoes; this MOU really is aimed at the larger libraries that make a lot of
money. We felt we could live with it. We thought about disbanding but felt we
couldn’t do it to the staff.”
“It was not handled well
by the trustees,” Jack says. “They tend to dictate and not collaborate.”
Keener
believes some Friends are waiting to see if they are actually going to be
evicted before signing.
Hudson says she hopes
all of the Friends will eventually sign the MOU by July 31 but “we haven’t set
a firm deadline.” If any Friends groups refuse to sign “we would work toward
dissolution of our partnership,” she says, which means the Friends group would
be “removed from the library space” and could no longer use the library name.
Lack of
compromise
“If they treated us as
equals, all of the issues could be resolved,” says Dennis Hays, chair of Fairfax
Library Advocates. “We could probably hash it out in an hour or two.
It is baffling why the county is antagonizing a group that has been so helpful
to the library system.”
“If the friends were to
go away, the ability of the library to serve the public would be severely
impacted,” Hayes says.
Library Friends are
volunteers, and many of them seniors. They put in countless hours supporting
their local library branch and collectively raise hundreds of thousands of
dollars a year – mostly from book sales – for library programs,
landscaping, furniture, and much more. George
Mason Friends pays for the countywide summer reading program.
Keener accuses Hudson of
“dictating, threatening, and bullying, instead of being willing to compromise.”
There has been a “great deal of mistrust, anger and sense of disrespect
throughout the process,” he wrote in an email to County Executive Bryan Hill. “How
is it going to look when they send marshals to throw out little old ladies who
sell books?”
Hudson brushes aside the
criticism, insisting “many Friends groups had an opportunity to have their
feedback taken into account.”
There have been many
meetings on the MOU, representatives of Friends groups acknowledge, but they
say they aren’t being listened to.
“Every effort by Friends
to offer an alternative MOU was completely rebuffed,” Keener says, and Friends’
request to have FCPL adopt a model MOU from the American Library Association
was ignored.
Friends have also
pointed to the county’s plan to use separate MOUs for friends groups that
support Fairfax County parks and suggested FCPL do the same for library
Friends.
According to Hudson, the
library Friends groups generally have the same missions and do the same
activities, so “having the same overarching document makes a lot of sense,”
while the park friends groups are more varied.
Money grab?
The single biggest point of contention is the provision in the MOU calling for
Friends to turn over detailed financial records to Fairfax County, despite the
lack of evidence of any wrongdoing.
“We are fine with
providing the same basic financial summaries we file with the Feds and which
are presented in our treasurer reports at our board meetings and given to
the branch manager,” Keener says. “But the director has told groups that they
must provide copies of every receipt and copies of their actual bank records.”
Keener finds it
especially insulting that “they are asking us to turn in every Costco receipt.”
“The concern is that
some of the friends have reserves, and it appears the county would like to make
use of them,” Hays says. “We literally give millions of dollars to the county.”
A lawyer specializing in
nonprofit law hired by several Friends groups told them “the county has no
legal right to demand such detailed internal records from a legally
recognized independent nonprofit entity,” Keener notes.
“Throughout this
process, we have not been treated as an equal party to a
mutual agreement,” he says. “And now we are being outright bullied and
threatened if we dare to uphold our legal rights and follow our
conscience.”
“As a county taxpayer I
am beyond angry to see this disrespect and abuse directed toward citizens who
have given selflessly of their time for decades,” Keener says. “This is truly
Big Brother run amok.”
Hudson defends the need
for more financial information. “The library board feels strongly that it’s
part of their fiduciary responsibility to provide transparency around monetary
issues,” she says. “Friends want more transparency, too. We will provide them
more information on how libraries use their money.”
Hays and Keener would
like to see the Board of Supervisors step in and resolve the issue. “The optics
of having the friends goose-stepped out of the library is something the
supervisors don’t want to visualize,” Hayes says.
Community center
Kathy Kaplan, a longtime
advocate of the libraries, believes the current conflict with the Friends is an
extension of previous attacks on the library system. That includes attempts to
slash the FCPL budget, the “beta plan” in 2013 to restructure how the
branches operate, and the systematic effort to throw out thousands of books to make more
space.
The number of library
books has been cut to 2.15 million, down from 3 million in 2004, Kaplan says,
and FCPL is purchasing very few nonfiction books for adults, and almost no
science, history, or philosophy books. Kaplan suspects the FCPL’s ultimate goal
is to turn libraries into human services centers or community centers.
Hays notes the libraries
already do a lot of community projects, such as bringing in guest speakers,
hosting community groups in meeting rooms, and organizing children’ programs.
But “turning the buildings into community centers with books along one wall is
not what a library is.”
When asked about her
vision for the library system, Hudson said libraries are not going to become community
centers. “We are more of a community hub, with computer access and programming
for children and adults,” she says. “We are continuing to meet baseline
services – checking out books and reading programs for children, for example –
and will build on that.”
Library advocates aren’t
buying it. “This is part of a radical rightwing effort to destroy educational
institutions in our state,” Kaplan says. “We need to have a functioning library
that provides information for the public.”
