ORDER-2021-86 : Appointment of Paul Fahey to the Library Board of Trustees for a three-year term; said term to end on the last day of February, 2024

Transcript (~13 min @ 2:40)

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▶ 2:35 Maya Jamaleddine: Um, um, we have now before us order 2021 dash 86. Appointment of Paul to the library board of trustees. For a 3 years terms that turn to end on the last day of February 2024.

▶ 2:56 Maya Jamaleddine: Can can we have the participants.

▶ 3:02 Speaker 1: Join us would you like to suspend the rules?

▶ 3:09 Maya Jamaleddine: Sorry, 2nd, we have motion to suspend the rules made by, um, President, second that by vice vice chair.

▶ 3:20 Speaker 1: Madam, can you call that all? Yeah. Yes, counselor. Yes, counselor Stewart. Yes. President. Yes, 5, yes, yes.

▶ 3:44 Paul Brodeur: Bring them in now. Thank you. Good evening. Everyone. It's great to see you all again and I will apologize in advance for the bird that is going. Again, going crazy in the background, because he knows the WebEx of the zoom is on. I very much appreciate you taking up these 2 nominations tonight. As you know that they are both. Appointments to the library board of trustees, I'd like to open by expressing my thanks and the thanks of the trustees and really the city as a whole. Um, to the clerk of committees, Kristen foot, who has done and continues to do incredible work. In many ways, shapes and forms, but is leaving her formal role as a member of the library board of trustees and I know we would all be remiss if we didn't extend our. our very deep appreciation and thanks for all that work you've certainly left the institution in a better place uh than you found it and um that having been said on to the new blood so i am delighted to offer for your consideration uh paul fahey paul is new uh to melrose but i've known him uh for many years and if you had a chance to review his resume and background you you will see that he has a wealth of experience in municipal government and in state government. To have a person on the library board of trustees that is passionate about libraries, is committed to the mission of the library, and also understands about how municipals work and where the buckets of money come from, and how to make the trains run efficiently. Mr. Fahey is absolutely qualified to do that, and I am delighted to offer his nomination for your consideration, and I very much appreciate him stepping forward.

▶ 5:47 Maya Jamaleddine: Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and Mr. Fahey, thank you for your time and for your consideration, also for stepping up and the floor is yours.

▶ 5:57 Speaker 3: Thank you, Madam Chair, Mayor, and members of the council. I appreciate the kind introduction. It's good to be the other Paul on the call. I appreciate the mayor's confidence. I have had a long history of involvement in government, as the mayor said, at the state level for many, many years, both in the legislature and the executive branch, and particularly in local government. I grew up in Watertown. I was very involved at the local level in both elected and appointed positions for many years. And then went to school, got involved in government more deeply on the state side, worked in the private sector doing government affairs for a while, and recently came back to municipal government as a chief of staff to the former mayor of Methuen and now currently the mayor of Amesbury. I've always been a passionate library supporter. I was a library volunteer in fourth grade at the Brown School when I was a kid, and I am a frequent user of library books and just very, very appreciative of the opportunity. I'm new to the community as the mayor said, I have a lot to learn. Sounds like I'm going to be filling some big shoes with the departure of the current trustee and I'm looking forward to that. And I hope I can bring some of the experience that I have outside of Melrose to the board. So, I appreciate it. I'm happy to answer any questions that anybody on the committee has.

▶ 7:15 Maya Jamaleddine: Thank you so much. Do we have any 1 of my fellow counselors would like to ask a question or make any comments?

▶ 7:28 Leila Migliorelli: Thank you Madam Chair and thank you Mr. Mayor and Mr. Fahey for being here tonight. I'm excited to have somebody with a lot of municipal experience joining this board. I'm just curious, I know you talked about your love of libraries and things like that. Just wondering about what you might find to be challenges of bringing the library you know back to the heart of the community that it was you know before covid and um you know just any thoughts about uh you know i know at times we talked about library expansions and things like that and just curious where you know where you're thinking your role will be on the board moving

▶ 8:08 Speaker 3: forward in those areas thank you counselor i think the role of the library board is to set policy it's not to manage the library uh to work with the administration the library director and the library staff but also to bring i think the perspective of the community and if it's a good board which i think it is from what i've seen there's different perspectives there um we're all dealing with what is the world going to look like post covet um as far as you know the building itself people's level of comfort in the building um programming uh outreach again i'm new to melrose i'm not gonna try to convince you that i that i know the community that well yet but i think i know what to look for um where i work currently we're in a very similar situation a library has been um only offering curbside for a period of time was obviously closed in the early days of covet is just about to reopen to the public it's also an older building with some building needs so i think there's some parallels there i think there are other libraries that are in a much better position both in terms of their um the buildings being newer and having less of the kind of challenges that i suspect i have not been in the library and i've been a user uh from from the curbside that i haven't gone in yet but i i can you know i can sense that there's probably some similar issues so i think it's going to be a big challenge and i think the board needs to um you know talk about what that means as far as programming and policies and make sure that um like everything else that we're adjusting to what things are going to look like as we come out of coven um i know there are issues around the building and possible development of you know You know, facilities in the building and renovations and so forth. And again, I, I'm supportive of that in concept. I need to see more of the details. I'll certainly share my thoughts with my colleagues on the board with the mayor. But I do think, like, we're all dealing with in our, in our jobs here, and in my case, in my day job as to what. What things are going to look like post-COVID and I think we're still figuring that out frankly.

▶ 10:05 Speaker 2: Thank you, Mr. Thank you. That's helpful. Next we have Councillor Stewart.

▶ 10:08 Robb Stewart: Thank you, Madam Chair, and welcome Mr. Fahy to presenting your position. Much appreciated. It's always good to see a Ward 3 resident coming forward. My question, and it may involve both the Mayor as well as yourself, is the Mayor's platform pre-COVID, he had a strong desire to Renovate the library and COVID sort of upset that apple cart. I think to a significant extent. I'm curious if you've been, if you followed or have taken into account some of the ideas that the mayor had presented prior to this, and any thoughts on what we can do in lieu of the events that have unfolded. I'd be interested in your perspective and Mr mayor, please, if you have any thoughts as well.

▶ 11:13 Speaker 3: Counselor, I did speak to the mayor when we discussed this appointment, he gave me some homework, which I eagerly did was to look at what the sort of current plans and thoughts are again. I can't tell you that I've really delved into them in any detail. I think it would be important to. Talk with the other trustees with the director and the mayor about the plans as I support them in concept. I, I won't speak for them. I suspect like, a lot of things. Things may be tweaked a little bit is in terms of cobit and roll out of this and I am supportive of it's a beautiful building just from the outside yet. I'm supportive of the efforts to to make it a better functional building as to what that functionality may or may not be. We're doing a similar thing here with 1 of the schools that's being built and it's very interesting to be working on a project like this in the context of cobit because we have an opportunity with this building in Amesbury to think about the ways that we've had classrooms set up the way we've had activity rooms and so forth. And obviously the library is a smaller building than a large elementary school, but I think some of those things are things that I look at as a trustee, but I defer to the mayor as far as if any of his plans have changed.

▶ 12:23 Paul Brodeur: That's something none of these guys are going to say. I defer to the mayor, so I appreciate that comment. It is probably a much more deep conversation for another day, but the short answer is the same answer that I gave during the campaign, and I think I've been consistent since, and it is that we're obviously going to take a look, but I think it is incredibly worthwhile investment that we have already made before my time, made some investment in terms of the plans. It is still a proposition based on the idea that the Mass. Board of Library Commissioners Capital Investment Fund will make this a pennies on the dollar project. Did you be inclined to go forward? That's probably good for now. Certainly, one thing that I've thought about in terms of COVID is the need for, on a somewhat generic basis, modern space that is owned or controlled by the city, with the exception of the middle school and to a much lesser degree, high school. All our buildings are in pretty tough shape and when we need to do things like have, particularly your cooling centers, warming centers, potential meeting places that can be segmented off unlike the current library, I think we will find a lot of wisdom in making this investment as a result of some of the experiences we've had with COVID. But again, that's a longer conversation that I know that we'll dive into the time that the state says it is, that funding is available for us to claim or take a walk on.

▶ 14:23 Robb Stewart: Great. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Fahey, for stepping up. Look forward to supporting you on this. Thanks, Constable. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.

▶ 14:33 Maya Jamaleddine: Thank you. Is there anyone else?

▶ 14:38 Speaker 1: Motion to recommend to the full board.

▶ 14:41 Speaker 4: Thank you.

▶ 14:42 Maya Jamaleddine: We have a motion to make a man made by presidents and Allah seconded by a chair by councillor Eccles madam Clerk, can you please call the room?

▶ 14:55 Speaker 1: Cheshire malady. Yes. Yeah, I should make Leary. Yes. Yeah councillor Eccles Yes councillor Stewart Yes. Yes councillor Thomas Yes President Sunilla. Yes