Library Trustees and the Kentucky Revised Statutes

SELECTED STATE LAWS AFFECTING TRUSTEES

Open Meetings Act and Open Records Act:

KRS 61.800-61.850 Library board meetings must be open to the public except in certain specific instances. Exceptions to open meetings applicable to library boards are:

1. (b) deliberations on the buying or selling of real property;
1. (c) discussion of proposed or pending litigation against or on behalf of the board;
1. (f) “discussions or hearings which might lead to the appointment, discipline, or dismissal of an individual employee, without restricting that employee’s right to a public hearing if requested.”
(This exception shall not be interpreted to permit discussion of general personnel matters in secret.)

[When going into closed session, the board must state for the record the KRS citation; therefore the exact subsections are listed. Example: KRS 61.810, Section 1, subsection f, to discuss a personnel issue.]

Kentucky Public Library Trustee Manual, 2009
Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives http://www.kdla.ky.gov/

NOTE: What is the penalty if the Board disregards these laws? I have written KDLA and apparently they can do nothing. The only recourse is a lawsuit. At the meeting I attended the Board went into executive session without stating the K. R. S. citation; or, if so, it was done in a voice so low I could not hear it. There were other irregularities that will be discussed later, but it is important to note that there is no one there to tell them how to conduct the meetings, and their lawyer does not know.

Dispute Resolution: Letter to the Board by James Duvall, M. A.

Request for Immediate Attention
to a Dispute Resolution

8 September 2009

Board of Trustees Boone County Public Library
Alice Ryle, President

In July I wrote a letter to Cindy Brown, former director of the Library in an attempt to resolve a dispute with my supervisor, Bridget Striker. This is in accordance with the procedure outlined in the handbook. After waiting for several weeks Cindy and I had a three-hour meeting in which we made a list of issues concerning publication of The Annals of Boone County, the project I have been working on for the last two years. Cindy said that finishing this project was important to the library, and she said she would start the process to have these issues resolved.

Cindy was not able to meet with any of us during the week following, and apparently turned over all paperwork to human resources just before she left. Instead of attempting to address the issues that Cindy and I agreed were important, Bridget began a pre-termination procedure, and scrapped my project, telling me I could complete it on my own time. What she has done instead is to re-name the project, with herself in charge, and is insisting that I work on this project to her specifications, with the explicitly stated threat of termination if at any time she is unsatisfied with my performance or behavior as a "team player." There are many problems with this arrangement.

Last Thursday Bridget told me she was renaming the project because of her concern about intellectual property issues, and she was changing the name of the project to the Chronicles of Boone County. Her project, besides having a copy-cat name, retains my ideas as outlined in my original proposal to Cindy Brown, and the bulk of its content is material that I wrote and collected for the Boone Encyclopedia, a project I began on my own time and initiative before I was hired to work on the Annals. I did not authorize use of my material for her new project. Giving something a new and similar name does not change its origin. The content that Bridget added herself is inaccurate in many respects; I provided Cindy with documentation of incorrect historical statements, and this was one of the issues that Cindy considered important for us to address in future meetings.

I am asking the Board to request and review the documentation from both sides, and make an impartial decision, which is the next step outlined in the employee handbook. I am also requesting a copy of the list of items that Cindy and I discussed, which is in the file she placed with human resources, and which I have unsuccessfully requested twice. The items on this list are the real issues at stake.

Two years ago I began working on the Annals, answering directly to Cindy; within the last year I was placed in Bridget's department for administrative purposes: she signs my timecard, but otherwise I have always been able to pursue the project, and have completed the first three decades of the material, and many other projects, such as the Mary Ingles book, working independently. Now Bridget has ordered me to take home all material for the Annals, and to begin working on her Chronicles project, under her direct and daily supervision, which began without warning this week. This new direction appears to be designed to ensure that her pre-termination policy can be fully implemented. I am requesting the Board to remove me from her direct supervision until a final determination can be made.
Sincerely,

James Duvall

cc: Greta Southard, Director
Boone County Public Library