UPPER SAUCON TWP., Pa. — The acting president of the library board and the library's executive director announced their resignations at Tuesday's packed Southern Lehigh Public Library's Board of Directors meeting.
The move came after a lengthy discussion and debate focused on the controversial $1 million proposal to have Lower Saucon Township join the library in a move from the Hellertown Area Library.
Near the end of the three-hour meeting, the board voted 9-0 to form a fact-finding committee at the suggestion of recently appointed board member and Upper Saucon Township Manager Thomas Beil.
- The Southern Lehigh Public Library Board of Directors voted to create a fact-finding committee related to the Lower Saucon Township proposal to join their library over continuing their partnership with the Hellertown Area Library
- The proposal has ignited controversy among residents throughout the library's service area and in Lower Saucon, with residents concerned about cost burden to Southern Lehigh and Lower Saucon residents wishing to stay with Hellertown's library
- The meeting also ended with the retirement of the library's executive director and stepping down of the acting board president
Plans for a large public meeting for funders and the public were rescinded by the board in favor of the fact-finding committee.
This committee will consist of board members Vicky Maund and Patrick Leonard (both of Upper Saucon Township), Kathie Parsons (Southern Lehigh School District), and ex-officio (non-voting) members Kat Moyer (Coopersburg Borough) and Ellen Deebel (Lower Milford Township). Board solicitor Joe Leeson and Mark Sullivan, a library district consultant, will also be part of the committee.
Coopersburg and Lower Milford Township do not contribute the required 15% of funding to the library to retain full voting power according to the library's current bylaws.
The board also had a verbal consensus that the issues regarding Lower Saucon Township's efforts to join not be discussed until the committee reaches its recommendation.
Controversy has enflamed the library and nearby townships since Lower Saucon Township first moved to break from Hellertown Area Library in 2022, not renewing a contract, and with its board proposing to join the Southern Lehigh Public Library.
This would add approximately 11,000 residents to the library's established coverage area of approximately 23,000 residents, which some staff and board members voiced concern over being able to serve based on current staffing and capacity restraints.
"I can state that Lower Saucon Township residents want to join Hellertown area library," Upper Saucon resident Ashley Murphy said at the meeting. "They want a library in their area. They don't want to have to drive here."
"Our librarians are already overworked," SLPL youth programming librarian Melissa Sutyak said. "It's still adding staff hours and workload onto them when we're already short staffed."
The proposal for Lower Saucon to join the library was not up for any vote, as the expiration date for the initial proposal had lapsed.
But dozens still attended to voice their opposition to the program, including many from Lower Saucon Township who decried the vote taken by their own municipality's council as vindictive towards the Borough of Hellertown. They reasoned it would not make sense for residents due to the distance they would have to travel and the burden that it could bring to the Southern Lehigh library.
The proposal, made in April by the township, included a 10-year agreement including $250,000 in American Relief Fund money and annual payments of $75,000. The agreement would have gone into effect Jan. 1, 2024, but has since lapsed due to the library board not completing passage by the township's May 4 deadline.
Dozens attended the meeting, attempting to pressure the board to drop further pursuit of the proposal for Lower Saucon to join the library, with applause commonly heard following oppositional remarks.
No attendees spoke in favor of the proposal. None of the more than 100 emails received by the library board related to the issue since it came before them of residents of Upper and Lower Saucon townships have been in favor.
Following discussions of the library controversy, two major resignations hit the board.
Southern Lehigh Public Library board vice president Bruce Eames, of Upper Saucon Township, announced he would be vacating his office by the conclusion of the meeting. Eames had been acting as the board's president in the wake of former board president Candi Krause's departure.
Eames in the meeting also read a letter of retirement from Lynnette Saeger, who has been the library’s director since 1989.
Leonard, a recent appointee from Upper Saucon Township and the director of general services of the municipality, volunteered for and was appointed as board president. Parsons was named vice president and Maund was named secretary.
Leonard, a recent appointee from Upper Saucon Township, is the director of general services of the municipality and a former board of supervisors member at Upper Saucon Township. He said his experience makes the shift to the position within his wheelhouse, but that there will be a lot to learn.
"One of the reasons that we're doing this, this committee is to really look into it and understand what it's all about, what's it going to take, how could it happen or not happen," Leonard said.
Beil recommended the committee consider regionalization of the two libraries. He spoke of potential benefits in sharing resources and personnel, but acknowledged disadvantages of political debate surrounding the issue.
Beil was confident in Southern Lehigh library's resilience regardless of the choice ultimately taken, but was not sure about Hellertown Area Library's ability to survive without some level of support from Lower Saucon.
Other board members, such as treasurer John Schubert, said that the gap between counties would make such regionalization difficult.
Resignation and retirement highlight meeting
The resignation of Eames and Saeger's retirement brought out messages of praise of their work from the board members present at the meeting.
Eames, who has served on the library board for about five years, said he was stepping down by the conclusion of the meeting despite having approximately a year remaining in his term. As part of the reason for his departure, Eames said he was sick of the business related to Lower Saucon Township.
"I have been a board chair for two and a half years," Eames said. "A year and a half of this whole Lower Saucon business."
In the announcement of her June 30 retirement, Saeger said she has been privileged to provide excellent library services to the Southern Lehigh community, and wished it continued success.
Board members such as Kat Moyer and Schubert voiced heavy praise for Saeger on her departure.
"I am extremely proud of all we've accomplished during my 34 years, because it's been very much a team effort," Saeger said.
Board members voiced some concern over finding a replacement due to the state requirement for a masters degree holder in the position. They noted many extra responsibilities will fall on new board president Leonard in the meantime.
A year-and-a-half-long controversy
The road for Lower Saucon Township's board of supervisors to get its wishes and join the Center Valley-based library system dates back to late 2021, during contract negotiations with the Hellertown Area Library, which the township was partnered with until last year.
Council president Jason Banonis of Lower Saucon Township said at the time that the municipality sought to negotiate and reach a new agreement with the Hellertown library, saying its board had excluded Lower Saucon Township from those discussions as they neared the lapsing of the prior contract.
"This was a crisis born of the library in Hellertown designed to benefit the library in Hellertown," Banonis said according to archived Township minutes in January 2022.
Lower Saucon Township joined with the Hellertown Area Library in 2013, previously using the Bethlehem Area Library before the township broke with it over noticing residents split usage between the city's library and the Hellertown Area Library and cost benefits from switching.
Banonis also stated that the Hellertown library rejected and ignored opportunities for communication and offerings to utilize its solicitor and involve them in discussions for a new contract, before presenting the township with a contract "without Lower Saucon's awareness or input."
"Some choose to misinform you that council wants to close the Hellertown Area Library," Banonis said. "In reality, all that we want is to be involved and informed about a resource that we pay almost a $100,000 of township taxpayer money for, that's it."
He said the township's solicitor recommended against entering into the "lopsided" contract.
Hellertown Area Library has been contacted for further comment.
The Lower Saucon Township board of supervisors moved to break from the Hellertown Area Library in January 2022, cutting some funding from Hellertown and moving to make a $50,000 donation to the Southern Lehigh library.
Lower Saucon's request to be excluded from the Hellertown Area Library was officially made in May 2022 and approved by the Office of Commonwealth Libraries in October, making the township an area considered unserved by a library.
These actions were met with heavy public outcry towards the township government, which has also recently received controversy due to the expansion of a landfill in the township.
"From what I hear, there's this vendetta against Hellertown," Lower Saucon resident Lynn Hill said at Tuesday's meeting. "And they've done numerous things to try to hurt Hellertown. And this is just one of those things. It's a shame that adults have this desire to mess up libraries so much. And you know, the kids are the ones that are going to be hurt by this."
"It puts both libraries in the risk of financial hardship," Hill said.
Board members and those in the community have not embraced the Lower Saucon proposal with open arms. Concerns are that the added population would cause an increased cost burden due to the proposed increased population requiring them to have more operating hours, have a greater amount of materials, and have to add staff to meet state minimums. Others voiced concern with being able to service the increased population, with current events often already hitting capacity.
"I feel that the library board's mission should always be to make decisions based on evidence and what's financially responsible for the library, as well as with, maybe morally, what's correct," Parsons said prior to the meeting. "And in this case, I think that points to Southern Lehigh, not connecting with Lower Saucon Township."
Further controversy erupted in Upper Saucon Township over the appointment of Beil and Leonard, who are township staff, instead of former board member Candi Kruse. Some speakers voiced concerns over the ethical implications of including the high-level township employees on the board.
"It puts both libraries in the risk of financial hardship"Lower Saucon Township resident Lynn Hill
Beil, who was also under fire for not being a resident of the library services area, disagreed that there was any ethical violations. He also said there was no issue with his appointment in the current bylaws of the library.
"I am dismayed, appalled by the actions of our own Upper Saucon Township supervisors board who made a sham of listening to residents and it proceeded with an obviously predetermined plan," Upper Saucon resident Ann Schubert said at Tuesday's meeting. "To take over the Southern Lehigh Public Library board, placing their own employees on the library board to achieve their agenda."
“People don’t believe me that I have an open mind, but I do," Beil said.
Part of the controversy, Moyer said, relates to the Coopersburg and Lower Milford reps no longer having voting power on the board, which she says was a recent change to how the board acted in practice.
Moyer, the board's representative from Coopersburg, said until recently and for approximately 60 years, all funding partners' representatives had equal voting power until Upper Saucon moved to follow state guidelines and current library bylaws requiring voting members to be from entities contributing a minimum 15% of the funding. She says that traditionally, the board liked to have all funding municipalities have a voice in the table and had not enforced the funding threshold since the board's founding in 1963.
She says attorney Joseph Leeson advised sticking to the bylaws as written to appease Upper Saucon Township and avoid possible accusations from Lower Saucon Township that they were not following rules.
According to Moyer, the first time Coopersburg and Lower Milford became non-voting members in the history of the library was at the last board meeting on April 18.
Moyer also says new bylawsapproved and submitted by the library in September 2022 remove the 15% funding requirement, have yet to be approved by Upper Saucon. A leasing agreement with Upper Saucon Township requires the municipality to have final approval over bylaw changes by the library board.
An update to this story clarified recent changes to voting policy by the library board as it relates to non-voting members
