Audience Feasts on Pizza as Library Commission Evaluates Librarian's Job Performance

Prior to the closed session, Dixon Library patron Joe Dingler officially inquired as to whether the library administration was ready to act on his request for information concerning payments to public relations firms and private consultants charged with moving the new library expansion project forward.

Dingler was told attorneys with Kronick Moskovitz Tiedemann & Girard, the law firm retained by District Librarian Gregg Atkins, were “working on it.”

Specifically, they were verifying whether the records Dingler requested were public records. Dingler will, Library Commission Secretary Sandy Myers informed him, be able to access the public records “probably in a couple of weeks” at the library.

The records would probably run about 40 pages, she said; he could make copies for 20 cents a page at that time. Myers acted as spokesperson for Atkins in his absence at this hastily scheduled special meeting, as he is currently on vacation in France.

After the commissioners left the Dixon Senior Center Multi-Purpose Room, Dixon City Councilman Michael Ceremello, who was in the audience, remarked that not acting on Dingler's request in a timely manner violated the Public Records Act of 1974, which mandates that requests for public records must be honored within 10 days.

“Unfortunately, this law has no teeth to speak of, so they can get away with this,” Ceremello said.

Then, audience members enjoyed the pizza and refreshments provided by the Dixon Carnegie Library Preservation Society.

“While they're in there working hard, we want them to know we're not out here stressing out about how all this is going to turn out,” DCLPS member Nancy Schrott said.

A festive atmosphere prevailed as audience members regaled each other with tales of past victories and other stories and amusing anecdotes connected with the library and Dixon history.

But then a consensus emerged that Dingler's recent success in removing the proposed change to language in SB 194, the Omnibus Bill, was not really a win for the community.

Although the librarian's efforts to create a “selected-by-Gregg-Atkins Commission” were thwarted, that does not resolve, in the stated opinions of several pizza-noshing audience members, the larger issue of effective library oversight.

“We're still saddled with the same non-responsive Commission,” stated Joe Dingler.

When the commissioners returned from their closed session, Commission President Greta Galindo announced, “We have nothing to report on the job evaluation yet.”

Community activist Byron Chapman responded by asking, since this comprises the fourth closed session evaluation of the District Librarian's job performance, “What is it that you are reviewing, that it would take this long?”

He then stated he himself had performed many employee job evaluations as a manager.

“I had a checklist of general things to cover, would conduct an interview, did some research if, rarely, necessary, and it never took more than an hour or two,” he said, afterwards elaborating on his checklist.

President Galindo agreed that the checklist was a good idea; in fact, she stated, the commission used one as well.

Chapman wanted to know what was on the commission checklist. Galindo responded that since it was a personnel matter, she couldn't get into specifics, but that general areas of inquiry included Atkins’ ability to utilize and forecast budgets, his relations with library patrons and leadership quality.

“As to the time we are taking, well, here you are dealing with a committee doing the evaluation, instead of just one manager making decisions on his own, so it takes more time,” Galindo said. “It is our right to take as much time as we have to take.”

She added that there will probably be a decision to report at the next regularly scheduled Library Commission meeting on April 18.

Then Library Commissioner Marjorie Rothrock added, “We're as frustrated as you are. We're as aware as you of how long this is taking. We appreciate your patience.”