Barbara Miller again urges library board to tape meetings

“How do you get something on the agenda?” Barbara Miller asked the Belleville Area District Library Board at its Aug. 11 meeting.
“I’m still waiting for an item to be on the agenda to tape the meeting,” Miller said.
“I know. I’ve heard your comments,” said board president Mary Jane Dawson. She said former board members Chris Brasil and Joe Monte gave a report one-and-a-half to two years ago and it was documented in the minutes.
Miller has been asking for the board to tape its meetings for several years.
She said it was a disservice to the community not to have it available.
She said at the previous night’s school board meeting there was important business and only about seven people were present.
“People are busy, but if they can catch it on TV it piques their interest. I think it might be time to look again,” Miller said.
Board member Joy Cichewicz said she has worked at several libraries and she’s never seen taping of library board meetings.
“So what?” Miller replied. “You are on the verge of an expansion and changes. You’ll be looking to the community for support, for a millage.”
Again, there was no promise to consider Miller’s suggestion.
Board member John Juriga asked Miller for input on getting corporations to help fund the library expansion.
Miller said in her 35 years of practicing law she has seen many donations, but you have to have a program. She suggested hiring a professional fund raiser who puts together a power point to present to foundations.
She said Edison has a separate, altruistic corporate foundation that gives money and so does Kresge. She suggested they interview professional fund raisers.
“It’s not going to cost you anything to talk to them,” Miller said.
Board member Sharon Peters said she has had experience in working as a fund raiser and lobbyist.
She said the library board is “new” now, with three new members and, “It’s not the same.”
From her experience, she said they have to have their ducks in a row and utilize the knowledge and experience they have on this board.
“I think we’re missing a good thing,” Miller said. “GE is in Van Buren Township.”
Peters said it is best to get someone local as a contributor.
Chairwoman Dawson said getting a corporate donor is more under Marketing than the Building Committee.
Peters said she was in charge of the Marketing Committee and she would look into it.
“You can say people are welcome to come to the meetings, but if you can’t, watch us on TV,” Miller said, adding she remembers the local donors who contributed to upgrading Victory Station.
“I have no skills in fund raising,” Cichewicz said. “This will be all learning.”
“The community would approve having us make an effort to raise funds without putting it all on taxpayers,” said board member LaChelle Caver.
She said if taxpayers see others are joining in to pay for the library, they might think, “Maybe …”
“Maybe the initial discussion should be at the regular meeting,” Cichewicz said.
She said one of the things that has been rolling around in her head is that the board approached the project with a needs assessment and that was not the right way. It should be, “What can we afford?”
We should look at the responses to the survey about what they are willing to pay, while exploring other ways to gain fund.
Juriga said they should not just look at corporate funds, but public support. He said there are wealthy residents in the community.
He said William Donahey come to him on the porch and offered him $1 million to start a Boys and Girls Club in Belleville.
“There are probably corporate people living in this community,” Peters said. “Who would know who they are?”
In other business, the board:
• Learned Ken and Sandy Askew donated lawn sculptures of four children and Juriga painted them and put them up inside the library;
• Learned the Building Committee was planning to meet at 10 a.m. Aug. 14;
• Learned the library hired a new adult services librarian Amy Greschaw, who had come from two part-time positions at once at the Baldwin Bloomfield Library in Birmingham and the Farmington Library while she was going to school working on her master’s degree in Library and Information Studies;
• Heard Library Director Mary Jo Suchy announce that staff members were getting a surprise bonus in their paychecks that week. It will be 20% more than expected, with the total paid out $2,600. She said after she was hired she promised to use some of her salary to give to the staff; and
• Heard Suchy thank the Belleville Area Council for the Arts for funding of the library’s summer final awards program, Joel Tacey’s Cool Caper Magic Show. She said he made a person actually levitate and she checked and there was nothing holding the kid up and she doesn’t know how he did it.