The action—a dramatic departure from closure decisions that have made headlines in Salinas, California, and Bedford, Texas—was adopted at a board meeting packed with some 200 patrons of SCPL’s Felton branch, which Library Director Anne Turner had recommended be closed in order to reduce the system’s $173,000 deficit to less than $17,000.
The branch closure plan became public knowledge without ever having been considered by the library board in a public meeting. Turner had only gone so far as to discuss the plan with individual trustees, a situation that created a furor all its own, according to the April 29 Sentinel.
At the meeting, Turner apologized for sharing details of private conversations with other trustees. “That’s a violation of the Brown Act,” she admitted, referring to California’s open-meetings law. She had come under fire earlier in the week from Santa Cruz County Supervisor Mark Stone, who told the Sentinel that Turner was working behind the scenes to close the Felton branch and had brought the proposal to him as “a fait accompli.”
Posted May 6, 2005.