Minutes for Aug. 8 2022 Trustees Meeting

The meeting convened at 7 p.m. inside the library. Present were Cindy Binzen, Melissa Strayton (librarian), Marty Frank, Curt Albee, Rachel Kurland and Carol Wilson.  

Minutes for the July 2022 trustees meeting were accepted.

Treasurer’s Report: Reviewing the Profit and Loss statement distributed before the meeting, Rachel noted that most expenses are close to what they were last year, with programming running higher because we’re doing more this year. Melissa explained that the audio amount is higher than it should be because it accounts for materials ordered last year but not received until this. Rymes hasn’t gotten back to Chrissy about this year’s price for fuel oil. No word from the IRS about the status of the 990 that was resubmitted. Regarding the possibility of cleaning some of the portraits hanging in our main room, Rachel said a friend bought a kit to restore a painting, and it came out quite well, although an exploration of reviews of the product indicate that the results aren’t uniformly wonderful. The option will be further explored.

Librarian’s Report: Melissa reported some glitches in book ordering. An order submitted to Baker and Taylor for the books on parenting that were to be paid for through the ARPA grant was short of the required minimum, so Baker and Taylor cancelled it. Those books were then ordered through Amazon. Melissa also sent in a regular book order to Baker and Taylor right before going on vacation, and when it was slow to arrive, she checked with the company. For some reason, that order had also been cancelled, even though it met the required minimum. Melissa straightened things out, but that particular batch of books has been delayed as a result. Melissa is planning to submit a new order for children’s books.

Melissa’s multi-month campaign to obtain the identification number from the federal government that we need to receive federal grants has not yielded results, so we’re going to be unable to obtain the second round of ARPA funding (around $500 for book purchases). An application for a new round of funding through the the Turrell Foundation has been submitted and Melissa asked for $4,100 for children’s programming. We’ll receive an answer in December. Participation in the summer reading programming is fluctuating. The book club has been revived, and six people attended the first meeting. Another year of Yola website hosting has been paid for. One of public computers has had trouble printing to our wireless printer. Doug Erhard noted that both computers are running Windows 7, which won’t be supported much longer. He thinks we should update our operating system software to Windows 10. We’ll need to find the administrator’s password to do that.

Other business:

Website Improvement Plan: The trustees decided to put off the decision until next month, and one of the two people who have expressed interest in doing the redesign will be asked to send us links to a few websites he has recently designed.

Fire truck night is scheduled for Wednesday. The trustees unanimously decided to make a $100 donation to the fire department.

The basement leak appears to be fixed. Curt reported that the well line had been dug up and what was discovered seems to confirm the theory that the leak was related to the sleeve that encases the line itself. The sleeve ends outside the building, and a pit was created underneath it to catch any water that might otherwise flow through the foundation. The leak seems to have stopped.

The roof: Rodd Roofing estimated that it will cost about $37,000 to remove the slate on the rear roof and replace it with standing seam. The quote struck Curt as on the high side and he’s checking with other roofing companies. He’s also going to see if he can get an estimate on painting restoration, just to give us some sense of what that would cost.

The Personnel Committee will meet with Melissa in August.

Our next meeting will be Sept. 19 at 7 p.m. at the library.

Submitted by Marty Frank