Feb 8, 2018 7 min read

After receiving a letter from the NAACP last month, East Washington Borough Council held a lengthy discussion regarding its participation with Citizens Library.

The letter, issued Jan. 9, requested the borough freeze “any decision for an appointment or re-appointment” of a representative to the Citizens Library Board of Directors “until there is an opportunity for minority participation.”

East Washington received the letter just after its Jan. 2 meeting, during which council decided to appoint an interim representative to the library board. Councilwoman Dawn Petrosky took over for Joyce Ellis, whose appointment had expired.

“If my term had expired, then they should have kept me on for that time as interim,” said Ellis. “This was so sneakily done.”

Borough council President Matt Boice said Ellis was appointed in February 2017 to fill the last year of a three-year term on the library board. He said even though she didn’t live in the borough, she was appointed to the position because she is executive director of LeMoyne Community Center, a nonprofit organization within the borough.

Boice said when Ellis’ term expired, council decided to put an interim representative on the library board to give the borough time to advertise the position and to “reach out to different people to see if anyone wants to serve.”

He said council didn’t choose Ellis to serve as that interim representative because they hadn’t heard from her. Boice said Ellis hadn’t been to a borough meeting since September and had not submitted regular monthly reports.

“We have nothing personal against Joyce Ellis,” he said. “Not having talked to Joyce, I wasn’t sure if Ms. Ellis was interested in continuing or if she even had the time for it. Our actions were not a reflection of job performance but because we didn’t know anything. We just wanted to make sure we were covered for the library meetings.”

He also said over the year Ellis spent on the library board, some East Washington residents expressed concerns that a nonresident was representing them, even though residency in the borough is not a requirement.

“There were some comments from residents that if we were going to use taxpayer money to have someone on the library board, that the representative should be someone who lives in the borough,” Boice said. “But that wasn’t necessarily a defining decision.”

In the letter from the NAACP, Phyllis Waller, president of the organization’s Washington branch, expressed disappointment Ellis was not notified of the expiration of her term. She also argued Ellis is the best choice to represent East Washington on the library board, when considering the borough’s “growing minority population.”

“Ms. Ellis’ organization, the LeMoyne Community Center, serves many of your residents and offers the largest enrichment programming for children in the region,” the letter read. “Her successful fund-raising skills are legendary and we can think of no better person to assist the library in the area in which they are so in need and so deficient.”

She sent a similar letter to the city of Washington Jan. 9, with the same request to freeze its library representative appointment.

“The City of Washington, comprised of over 15 percent minorities, has not had a minority representative on the library board in our collective memory,” she wrote in the letter. “We believe the minority communities are not being served by the library and its administration. Members of our community and organization have served Citizens Library as donors, volunteers and fundraisers. Yet they are not represented in a decision-making role.”

Two days later, city officials addressed the letter at the council meeting, and said, while they welcome minority involvement in the board, they were reappointing their library representative, Mike Jones, based on his qualifications for the position and the work he’s done on the board so far. Council voted unanimously that day to reappoint Jones, who is regional editor for the Observer-Reporter.

Waller also questioned whether the library’s current bylaws include any provisions for municipalities to have an interim representative. They don’t. The bylaws state the three-year terms begin on the expiration of the current term, that members are limited to two consecutive terms and “a member can be reappointed a minimum of one year after their term has expired.”

Diane Ambrose, executive director of the library, said since 2008, when she started with the library, she hasn’t seen an “interim” board member. However, she said it has always been a practice that municipalities can remove and reappoint representatives whenever they want.

“The appointing capacity rests with the municipalities,” she said. “It’s entirely up to them.”

Boice wrote a response letter Jan. 11 to Waller, explaining he had difficulty getting in touch with Ellis to inform her of her term’s expiration and the newly appointed interim board member. While soliciting interest for many of the borough’s commissions, Boice said he reached out to Ellis to see if she was interested in serving on the library board again.

“I said, ‘You’re welcome to express an interest in the position as much as anyone else in the community,'” Boice said Tuesday. “To this date, I have not received a response from Ms. Ellis. I did get a few letters expressing interest, but nothing from Ms. Ellis.”

Ellis said she was not available to talk the day Boice reached out to her, and she found out about no longer being the East Washington representative at the library board’s January meeting. After that, she said she was too fed up to pursue it.

“I know how this game works,” she said. “I wash my hands of it.”

Ellis said she felt the library’s leadership was “pushing me out,” because she took a strong cost-saving stance in library board discussions.

“I’m not going to fight to be somewhere to help the community where the board and directors don’t want me there,” she said. “I’d rather spend my energy somewhere else. When you have a mission and you want to help people and they slap you in the face … you get tired of fighting it.”

East Washington held an executive session at its Monday meeting to discuss “potential litigation involving Citizens Library,” but details were not made public. Ambrose said East Washington had not reached out to her regarding any executive session involving the library.

East Washington, which has three new council members this year, also discussed whether it would even keep representation on the library board.

“It’s too much politics for a library,” Councilman Jerad Cypher said.

In order to keep its seat, East Washington would need to contribute $5,000 by June, according to the library’s recently updated bylaws. Boice said the borough has budgeted the money for the library but hasn’t written the check yet.

The borough plans to advertise all of its open positions on commissions and boards, including the library board, within the next few months.

“We’d like to advertise them together,” he said. “That way residents can see all the things that we need people to volunteer for and pick the thing that best fits their skill sets.”

Overall, the council agreed it wants to continue financially supporting the library.

“Our residents seem to really support the library,” he said. “The borough does generally feel that the library is an asset to the community that we want to support, just like we supported the LeMoyne Center, Freedom Transit and the fire department.”