Posted June 30, 2003.

Pueblo Board May Ask Fired Director to Return

Just two months after trustees of the Pueblo (Colo.) City-County Library District summarily fired library Executive Director Richard Lee for refusing to accept a demotion, the newly comprised board is considering whether Lee should come back as interim executive director. Some trustees regretted that they cannot rehire Lee outright because he has already accepted the directorship of the Waukegan (Ill.) Public Library, where his tenure begins August 1. “I hate to lose that staff. They are fantastic people,” Lee told American Libraries, noting how some employees had “put their jobs on the line” by carrying placards reading “Chicago’s Gain, Pueblo’s Loss” outside the board’s June 26 meeting.

At that meeting, the board fired interim director Barclay Jameson over the wording of a job ad for the library’s executive directorship. “You thought that was going to be an attraction?” trustee Joyce Vigil remonstrated Jameson, referring to the ad’s second sentence: “The down side is that many of the staff are angry that the previous director was fired.” Noting the extensive press coverage that Lee’s dismissal has received, Jameson replied, “I was just trying to be up front with the candidates,” according to the June 27 Pueblo Chieftain.

Also on the June 26 agenda was discussion of an offer to resign by the library’s law firm and the credentials of Human Resources Director Helen Tomicich, who at the old board’s last meeting on May 23 had passed written comments about library staff to reporters. Lee told AL that he was the subject of at least one, which read, “He’s a Buddhist.”

Posted June 30, 2003.