Posted by 
The Pike County Board of Commissioners sat down with the Pike County Public Library's Board of Directors in an effort to chart a course for the future Tuesday morning.
By Jim Davis
MILFORD — On Tuesday morning, the Pike County Commissioners and the Pike County Public Library Board had a meeting at which they agreed to have another meeting.
The December 22 meeting got off to a cordial start, with Library Board President Maleyne Syracuse pointing out that the library board was at the table in a spirit of compromise.
Since a referendum for a one-mill county tax was shot down by voters in November by a wide margin, the two sides have been in conflict, with the commissioners demanding a change in the library’s bylaws and the structure of the board, and the library board holding the position that they have been successful in raising private funds, they don’t want to politicize the library board, and the board’s current structure is consistent with the structure of other nonprofit boards in the state that receive taxpayer money.
The county budget for 2010, which has not yet been finalized, contains no appropriation for the library, though there is money in the county’s contingency fund that could ultimately be directed to the library. The county has been one of the library’s major sources of funding, providing $200,000 per year in recent years.
Last week, the library board sent the commissioners a letter that proposed a solution calling for the creation of an advisory board, comprised of five to seven members, that would advise the library board on financial issues that would impact Pike taxpayers and long term strategic issues relating to the library system.
This notion was quickly shot down in Tuesday’s meeting by Commissioner Karl Wagner. “The idea of an advisory committee isn’t satisfactory to us,” said Wagner. He went on to note that such a committee could, in theory, be entirely ignored.
Commissioner Chairman Rich Caridi sketched out three issues that he felt needed to be dealt with in order to break the impasse between the two sides. First, Caridi told the library board he wanted to see a board constituted in such a way that it had a broader geographic representation; second, he wanted to see the library’s bylaws changed to, among other things, make it harder to remove sitting board members; and third, he wanted there to be a rigid timeline on when these changes would be implemented.
Additionally, Caridi suggested the size of the board should remain the same as it is now, that is, with nine people serving. Currently, two of the board members are appointed by the commissioners, one is appointed by the Community House, where the Milford Branch is housed, and the remaining six are appointed by the board itself. It is this formula that the commissioners would like to see changed to include more appointments by county and municipal officials.
In the end, the two sides managed to agree on a date of closure; they hope to see the whole deal worked out by January 29. They will meet again on December 31 at 10 a.m. in the commissioner’s meeting room. Prior to that meeting, the library board will meet on Monday, Dec. 28, at 1 p.m. to discuss the issue internally. The library board meeting will be held at the Biondo Building, at 221 Broad Street in Milford.
