Friday, October 26, 2012
Township Committee Actions Threaten Dismantling of Library Service
By Randell Gabrielan
The assault by the Middletown Township Committee on library funds threatens and will have the ultimate result of ending library service as township residents know, need, expect and love. The impending fiscal crisis is worsened by a reduction in equalized property valuations which will reduce the municipal appropriation, a not unreasonable practice, but one of the factors for which the library’s reserves, which were seized by the Committee, were intended to safeguard. After taking about $500,000 last year, the committee demanded and took additional funds this year, monies raised outside statutory municipal appropriations. The need to elect Linda Baum and place a voice for the people on the monolithic committee has become more urgent.
The Township is charging the library for ordinary municipal services in a manner and amounts that will end the library’s ability to maintain its hours, materials and branches. They provide no justification and regard the library as a profit center or piggy bank. The financial aspects of library operations are simple. The library pays for facilities, personnel and materials. The buildings need attention, even the totally rebuilt and now eight years old main library. Some are already saying that the branches are on the way out, a direct hit at the bayshore, Navesink and Lincroft. The new realities of the steep decline of planned revenue must have an impact on staffing and new materials. However, the township committee does not care and willingly makes war on its one facility that more residents need and use than any other. Linda Baum is a vocal advocate for an independent, property financed library.
After the township committee threatened to turn the library over to the county, but learned that it could not do so, it undertook a campaign to eviscerate the Middletown Library so residents might not care about the independence of our library and could conceivably vote in a referendum for a giveaway. But this is our library, built and paid for by Middletown to serve Middletown, operated by your staff to serve you, the people of Middletown. Your library needs at least one voice on the committee to defend it. Linda Baum is that voice.
Friends, users and advocates of our library may be expected to vote for Linda. Perhaps straight ticket Republicans may not, but they should reconsider. Regardless of a person’s broader political affiliation, local government is best run on a non-partisan basis, but if partisanship is the rule of the day, more than one voice is needed. All voters should realize that a strong, independent library is one of the assets that makes Middletown a desirable place and enhances and maintains your property values. The present dictatorial township committee, which runs a once-independent library board, would erode your property values as a convenience in their fiscal planning. They must have another voice and that voice should be Linda Baum. Voting to maintain the integrity of the library is also voting for quality of life in your town.
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6 comments:
I wonder if the Middletown's failure to place in the Fortune Magazine: Top 100 Places To Live in the United States quality-of-life survey, after being included over the last six years, was impacted by the Middletown Township Committee 'War On Literacy'? Raiding the funding required to keep the library functioning at the highest possible level and as a major contributor to quality-of-life in Middletown is not behavior that could be deemed supportive of caring for resources that promote community well-being. When clever self-serving people are given stewardship over a community that translates into dominance over and not authentic caring for, then the community of many suffers for the benefit of the few.
Well said Anon 7:03. The committee's restructuring and infiltration into the library board so that they could raid the coffers to balance the municipal budget has diminished the library's ability to provide the best service possible for the residents.
What the mayor no doubt views as a political victory is the reason he lost my vote. Why does the library board need to have a mayoral designee and a school superintendent designee? The school system and the library should be as isolated as possible from our town's politics.
The mayor was able to take the library's reserve by threatening to give control of the library to the county. He engaged in a witch hunt to remove Randall Gabrielan from the board because Randall was opposed to turning the library's reserves over to the township. The mayor had someone go through the receipts for the library and found Randall's signature on an invoice for books that he wrote. These are very popular books that he was selling to the library at a discount. No one is suggesting that the purchase of the books was inappropriate. The only claim of impropriety was that Mr. Gabrielan was the person to sign the receipt. Had anyone else signed the receipts he would still be on the board. He had volunteered decades of service to the library and was forced to resign because he signed a receipt. He made an honest mistake.
What the mayor did was to target Randal and attempt to destroy his reputation. I think it was a ruthless and unconscionable maneuver based on a technicality. The fact that this is all they could find on this man after decades of service is a testament to his integrity. I cannot support anyone who would show such a total disregard for the consequences on such a dedicated and charitable individual for political gain.
Anon 8:45,
What he did was illegal, DONE!
He is so arragant, he tried to fight the acusation and he made it a bigger issue than it was and now is on a crusade of revenge.
Mr. Gabrielan can't have it both ways. If he truely believed that he did nothing wrong he wouldn't have resigned.
He did, he is a "formermember" of the LB, and has no say in decisions the LB makes except from the peanut gallery.
It can't be a good sign for Ms. Baum if someone of his ilk is supporting her.
Anon 8:45, doing 66 mph on the Parkway is illegal too.
This was a procedural error, nothing more. He resigned because he knew the mayor was going to press the technicality and he would eventually be forced to resign.
If Mr. Gabrielan was in favor of handing over the library funds to the township this minor misstep would have been overlooked and he would still be on the board.
No one has ever said Mr. Gabrielan wasn't acting in the best interest of library. The same cannot be said for our mayor.
The same amount of scurtiny needs to go into auditing the financial workings of TOMSA, except TOMSA makes it impossible for the public to get information. There was also the independent audit of the Township a few years ago and it was a mess that was quitely corrected, heads should have rolled and none did. Where are the more recent audits; can they be easily found on the Township website?
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