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Gwinnett Board Names Interim Director; Pinder Asks for ApologyGwinnett County (Ga.) Public Library trustees named an interim executive director in a closed session June 15 to replace Jo Ann Pinder, whom the board fired without explanation three days earlier. Library Business Officer Nancy Stanbery-Kellam stepped in to fill the vacancy immediately, the June 15 Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.Pinder’s attorney, Judith O’Brien, sent a letter to trustees June 15 asking for a public apology and claiming the board violated Georgia open-meeting and library laws by “executing a game plan that obviously had been scripted ahead of time by four of its members and their behind-the-scenes legal adviser,” the Gwinnett Daily Post reported June 16. The open-meeting violation charge stems from an allegation that a quorum of at least three members met privately for more than an hour before the dismissal vote was taken at its June 12 business meeting. The board voted 3–1 to terminate Pinder, who has run the library since 1991, despite the turnout of some 200 supporters, many of whom showed up wearing red at the suggestion of trustee Brett Taylor, who cast the lone dissenting vote. Taylor had written an open letter that appeared in newspapers June 5, warning that a faction on the board intended to fire Pinder and replace many of the senior staff. More than half of the 21 speakers who addressed the board during a public-comment period praised Pinder’s achievements, according to the June 13 Daily Post. “This breaks my heart,” Lilburn resident Cheryl Barry told the paper. “I feel like they have taken our library back a decade.” Other speakers criticized Pinder’s collection development policies and questioned a relationship with a community foundation that holds some of the library’s funds. Despite repeated requests from the public and the media, board members Phyllis Oxendine, Dale Todd, and Margaret Tiller gave no reason for the dismissal and would neither confirm nor deny Taylor’s charge that the move was due to personality conflicts with Pinder. The motion to fire Pinder came after the board decided to forego a planned closed session to evaluate her performance. Taylor asked to speak in opposition before the vote was taken, but the others moved to block any discussion, the Journal-Constitution reported. Board Chairman Lloyd Breck abstained from voting but said he supported the decision. Because she was fired without cause, Pinder will receive one year’s salary of $127,000 in severance pay. Pinder told American Libraries that her attorney’s letter also asked trustees for a public acknowledgment of her contributions as well as a 2% merit raise that she might have gotten had the board not missed its obligation to evaluate her on April 1. She added that the situation was essentially a “personality clash” among “strongly opinionated persons” as well as a “clash of philosophies about the role of the library board and the role of the director.” Posted June 16, 2006. |
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