Middletown Library Appoints Kim Rinaldi Provisional Library Director

For Immediate Release:
January 15th, 2014

The Middletown Township Public Library and the Township of Middletown are pleased to announce the appointment of Kim Rinaldi as Provisional Library Director, beginning on February 24, 2014. Ms. Rinaldi will earn a salary of $95,000.00 per year.

Ms. Rinaldi comes to the Middletown Township Public Library after having served as the Library Director of the Margaret E. Heggen Free Public Library in Washington Township, New Jersey. During her tenure in Washington Township, Ms. Rinaldi managed 26 employees and a $2.5 million annual budget. Ms. Rinaldi has also served as the Director of the Brielle Public Library and as a Senior Librarian at the Ocean County Library, Long Beach Island Branch in Surf City, New Jersey.

Ms. Rinaldi holds a Masters in Library and Information Science from Texas Womens College and has extensive experience in library administration, budgeting and project management. Ms. Rinaldi is credited with outsourcing material cataloging and processing at the Margaret E. Heggan Free Public Library, reducing annual operating costs by $150,000.00. Ms. Rinaldi also managed a successful $2 million library building project.

Ms. Rinaldi is excited to begin her new position as Provisional Library Director and looks forward to working with the Board of Trustees, staff and residents to continue to make the Middletown Township Public Library a premier resource and destination of choice for the residents of the Township.

September 18, 2013 Middletown Library Board Meeting

As promised here is the video from last night's meeting of the Middletown Library Board of Trustees. As discussed earlier it was at last night's meeting that the board announced the resignation of Library Director Susan O'Neal.

The video was posted only a few minutes ago so I haven't had the opportunity to fully watch it but the little that I have seen is interesting. The 2 comments by attendees prior to the board going into executive session were impassioned (as were the comments afterwards) but of most interest of course, is the announcement that Ms. O'Neal had resigned her position at the library. The library board voted unanimously to accept Ms. O'Neal's but voted 6-1 on the compensation package given her as a result of her resignation.

Watch it:

Middletown Library Director Susan O'Neal resigns

At last night's Middletown Library Board of Trustees meeting, the Board attorney Mr. McOmber, announced that Library Director Susan O'Neal had resigned her position after securing a package to walk away. There is an article up on the Asbury Park Press's website written by reporter Susanne Cervenka, the article is a little misleading but worth reading. For convenience I posted the article below but will post the video of the meeting as soon as it is processed.

Don't be fooled, getting rid of Susan O'Neal as Library Director will not end the library's troubles...the future of the library is bleaker now than before since Ms. O'Neal will not be there to shield it from township control any longer. Unfortunately you can't reason with psychopaths and expect positive outcomes:

MIDDLETOWN — Embattled Middletown Township Public Library Director Susan O’Neal resigned Wednesday night after controversy that has been lingering for at least two months.

Middletown Library Board of Trustees tonight also approved a settlement with O’Neal. The terms of that agreement were not disclosed. Library Attorney R. Armen McOmber said Middletown Township is also a party to the settlement and still needs to approve it.
No interim director was appointed to replace O’Neal. Library President Brock Siebert said the three department managers within the library will report directly to him for the time being. The library board’s personnel committee will be responsible for making a longer term appointment.

McOmber advised all library trustees against discussing personnel matters.
O’Neal was given a Rice notice, a formal notification that her employment was going to be discussed, in advance of the July 17 meeting.

That came shortly after emails regarding the library were released via public records request by Committeeman Anthony Fiore between O’Neal’s private Hotmail account and Linda Baum, a library supporter, frequent critic of Middletown government and Democratic candidate for Township Committee. Fiore, who is now on the library board, has said previously he believes those emails prove O’Neal was orchestrating crowds at library trustee meetings to sway board action.

O’Neal’s resignation also came 5½ months after it was discovered that the library actually had an extra $156,000 that arose from a township audit in September 2012. O’Neal has said in public meetings that she did not know about the funds when the library trustees working on their 2013 budget, which eliminated funding for three satellite branches.
The closure of the branches prompted outrage from residents who used them.

Reader applauds Middletown library director

The following letter of support and appreciation for Middletown Library Director Susan O'Neal, appears in this week's edition of the Independent. Unfortunately however, it seems to have come a little too late to have any effect on her bosses. It appears that Susan O'Neal is no longer in charge over at the library; she will be missed greatly. I thank her for her service as well: 

I want to applaud Susan O’Neal for the wonderful job she has done making the Middletown Township Public Library the great institution it is today.

As a frequent user of the library, its books and programs, Susan should know that she is appreciated beyond words. You have not gone unnoticed. People from neighboring towns and as far away as Brick have used our library and celebrate it. I’m very proud of my library. Thank you, Susan.

Felicia Cappadona
Middletown

Where In Middletown Is Susan O'Neal?

Conspicuously missing from the meeting agenda of tomorrow's (Sept. 18th) meeting of the Middletown Library Board of Trustees is the name of Library Director Susan O'Neal. It's nowhere to be found.

Has Ms. O'Neal been quietly relieved of her duties as Library Director after last weeks special meeting of the Board of Trustees where no public action was taken after the board spent nearly 45 minutes in executive session? That's a distinct  possibility, I've been told that she hasn't been seen at the library for a few days and that her office has been cleared out.

If that is the case than I am truly sorry to hear it.  Ms. O'Neal was a well respected librarian though out the state and true advocate for Middletown's Library system whose downfall was set into motion when she and others who had sat on the library's Board of Trustees openly opposed the transfer nearly $750K of dedicated and surplus funds from the Middletown Library to the Township Committee over the past 2+ years.  

I have an email out to Ms. O'Neal but frankly, I don't expect her to respond. If she does I'll pass along her response. In the meantime, I wish her well and I hope the best for her. She deserves better.



 

In Defense of Library Director Susan O’Neal’s Library Advocacy

Last Wednesday, July 17 there was a small group of 9 or so attendees at the meeting of the Middletown Library Board.   During public comments at the start of the meeting (time: 8:34), Middletown resident Elizabeth Mitchell spoke eloquently in support of Library Director Susan O’Neal’s advocacy for the library.

Ms. Mitchell addressed a number of the unreasonable criticisms in the news of late and provided clear thinking in their place. She spoke without any script and received ample applause from the small group of public attendees. Here's what she had to say:

"My name is Elizabeth Mitchell. I have lived in this township of Middletown since 1967. I was employed as an adjunct instructor at Monmouth University and for about 40 years as an English instructor at Ocean County College.

I am deeply concerned about the issues of FREE SPEECH which I have spoken on publicly and sometimes in very controversial situations throughout my career.

I have a high opinion of the library and the way that it has been run during my nearly entirely adult life in this township.

I do not like the tone of the kind of commentary that is coming from a certain Committeeman and it does not seem to be being responded to by the Trustees of the library. I guess in terms of the agenda what I would be speaking to is your mission statement and it seems extremely startling to me that anyone would expect the head of the library to be passive or to be unconcerned about issues that affect the funding of the library.

What would you think of a football coach whose team, let’s say it was a high school coach whose team fumbled and lost and did not go through proper training processes season after season and the coach said, “Well I’m an impartial person. I’m just you know in favor of athletics and I pride myself on my detachment from the whole concern.

I think that any public librarian much less the head of the library should receive a

HERO MEDAL for standing up for public funding for the library, for wanting open public records when it comes to shutting down branch libraries, who would communicate with people who might be concerned about the fate of the library.

I think that’s a VOCATION and you’re very lucky if you have someone who regards a job as a vocation. Some businessmen are like that, I mean they really want to serve the public. They don’t look at it simply like a cash transfer concern. The best doctors, the best teachers, have a big investment in the concerns that they are employed in and that is certainly true for a library.

I think we’re all dealing with a kind of stereotype of librarians that is terribly outdated. I mean I look at this report that came out I guess in the email of the Asbury Park Press. It says “Susan O’Neal played more than just a passive role in the library imbroglios”. Well let’s hope that its more than just a passive role! 

If the head of the library is unconcerned about the fate of the library, you’ve got a huge, huge, problem, and you should be supporting her to the max.

Now I do not have any personal connection with Susan O’Neal. I belong to a discussion group that meets monthly to discuss major books and the discussions there are focused on the books. I do not know any of the other people who have been involved in the issues that you’ve been discussing. But I think behind all of it is a terribly important principle that has to do with apparently not expecting leadership from the people that you’ve hired to be leaders. I mean it just seems, it seems incredible.

I’d like to make an analogy and this has to do with the statement that Susan O’Neal approved the closing of the branch libraries and then backed off from that. If you have a prisoner and you lock the prisoner in a cell and you gave him a choice between water or food and they choose water then would you accuse them of deliberately starving themselves to death? Because it seems to me that that is the kind of irrational logic that’s going on here that somebody who has their budget cut is then criticized for making decisions with what can be accomplished with a diminished budget.

I think it’s time for a wake-up call; I am really alarmed at what you are letting happen here."

Well said.

To see what else happened during the July 17th meeting of  the Middletown Library Board you can watch the video below, its run time is a little more than an hour long. A lot happened at the meeting that should be of interest to many, so take the time and watch it.



(Thanks go to M.E. for transcribing Ms. Mitchell's comment.)

Monmouth County Library System in Trouble?

According to an article posted on NJ.Com, it looks like Monmouth County Freeholder John Curley wants to do to the Monmouth County Library system what Tony Fiore and the cronies here in Middletown have done to our library, which is to systematically disparage and cripple it to the point where a few individuals speak out and confront its leadership about the extravagant cost in tax dollars it takes to operate the library and then accusing its administrators of neglect and mismanagement of funds. All of which then leads to the threat of to defund the library, take its surpluses and get rid of (fire or lay-off) those that oppose them, all in the name of budgetary austerity.

From NJ.Com:

The Monmouth County Library system continues to modernize and expand, but the cost is alarming some residents and officials.

The Board of Chosen Freeholders approved a $13.6 million tax levy to help fund the libraries’ $19.2 million budget, but not without protest from one member.

“I am very much concerned over these expenditures and how the library needs to reign itself in,” Freeholder John Curley said.

Curley said the library was on the path to fiscal insolvency.

“There has to be a drastic overhaul of the library system,” Curley said. “It can’t sustain itself. In 2014 at this rate the library’s bankrupt. I hope this plan can be incorporated.”

Monmouth County Libraries Director Ken Sheinbaum demurred, arguing that the system is a paragon of how to do more with less.

"Our library is among NJ's large public library systems and by a substantial measure the most efficient," Sheinbaum said. "Based on the number of circulations that each full time employee is responsible for, our employees are doing twice as much work as some of our sister institutions, and that was before we had a cut. It presents an exciting challenge for us to see how long we can maintain services on the level... while at this point losing eight percent of our staff over the past eight months."

Though the library's budget has decreased around $650,000 from 2012 levels, the gap between the library’s budget and its tax levy has increased. That shortfall been filled over recent years by Monmouth County’s surplus funds – this year, almost $6 million will be spent keeping the library solvent.

Sheinbaum said the money will come out of the system's fund balance.

"It is a library surplus, the library operates on a dedicated tax," Sheinbaum said. "We don't rely on the county to make a contribution, we take that from our own reserve." ...Continue reading.

I suppose if you're a Middletown Library supporter and advocate the good news is the Middletown Library won't be changing hands anytime soon no matter how much Fiore wants to destroy it.