District Library Board reelects Sharon Peters as chairman for 2022

Sharon Peters was reelected chairperson of the Belleville Area District Library Board at its regular, in-person meeting on Jan. 11.
The other officers were reelected as well: vice chairperson Mary Jane Dawson, secretary Alma Hughes-Grubbs and treasurer Tonya Stoudemire.
The motion by John Juriga to reelect everybody included the committee members, but that was eliminated from the motion because the chairperson appoints committee members with their approval.
Chairperson Peters asked committee members to let her know if they wished to serve on a different committee this year before she makes the appointments.
There had been no marketing committee meeting during the past month, but Library Director Mary Jo Suchy said they are working on special invitations for the donors’ event. She said the final order has been made for the signs and they are expected to be delivered Feb. 9 and should all be installed by March 3, just in time for the donors’ party on March 11.
Director Suchy said they are working to get Paul Keller to play for both the donors’ event and the grand opening event.
“We’re still looking at the COVID number, hoping it will go down as fast as it went up,” Suchy said.
“We are hopeful COVID will allow us to have the schedules we planned,” Peters added. She said the date of the next marketing meeting will be determined after the board meeting when everyone can compare calendars. Hughes-Grubbs and Dawson are the official members of that committee. Dawson was absent from the Jan. 11 meeting.
“A wonderful time it will be,” Peters said of the library events.
In other business at the 52-minute meeting, the board:
• Heard treasurer Stoudemire announce the library had another clean audit. Suchy said the construction expenses will be done at the end of this fiscal year on June 30;
• Heard Suchy report that she feels like she is in the movie “Groundhog Day” as COVID yet again causes the library issues. She said over the past two weeks she has had eight staff members with COVID exposures over the holidays. She said so far they are juggling schedules, but they may have to invoke some temporary closures if numbers continue to climb. She said she currently is requiring all staff to mask up when they are in the public areas of the building. “I am hoping the latest wave will be short,” she said. Suchy said she filled in as teacher for a computer class at the Sumpter branch and they had five students;
• Heard Joy Cichewicz report that there are too many staff members with COVID at the library in Ypsilanti where she is director. She said Santa backed out of an event they had planned for children. “They all got it from the holidays,” she said, noting she watches the COVID numbers in the Independent and their numbers in Ypsilanti are five times Belleville’s numbers;
• Heard Peters say her children and grandchildren are in Chicago, New Orleans, and New York and they all got COVID for Christmas; and
• Heard Juriga say he would like to get a grant for the library to hire a social worker to help people get jobs. Linda Priest said homeless people use libraries and a social worker could help them.