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Addressing issues
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Juliet Machie, deputy director of the Detroit Public Library, and John S. Weedon, volunteer coordinator at a Connecticut food bank, both finalist candidates for the directorship of the Mahoning County public library system, share a light moment Wednesday during a question-and-answer period at a public forum at the Poland library.
Library-director candidates answer questions at public forum
POLAND
Two finalists for the directorship of the Mahoning County public library system defended their work records and outlined their extensive library leadership experience at a public forum.
One of the finalists, John S. Weedon of Manchester, Conn., is volunteer coordinator of the Foodshare food bank in Bloomfield, Conn., which distributes 16 tons of food daily, but he hasn’t worked in the library field since 2008.
The other finalist, Juliet Machie of Belleville, Mich., deputy director of the Detroit Public Library, has been embroiled in a controversy over a Detroit library expansion.
Weedon was asked at the Wednesday forum why he spent only a short time at the Hartford (Conn.) Public library in 2007-08 as deputy chief librarian for administrative services before taking the food-bank job.
As that library’s financial troubles worsened, Weedon said: “I thought it might be wise to just start looking around and see what’s out there, and that’s when I came upon Foodshare.”
Weedon had said in an earlier interview that he left his Hartford library job because he thought he might be laid off due to the budget crisis and because of his interest in feeding the hungry.
The food-bank experience has “really given me a good opportunity to get the nonprofit perspective,” he said during the forum. “I picked up some lessons and experiences I wouldn’t have gotten if I had stayed in libraries,” he added.
“It’s the same thing as what we do in libraries, but a little bit different. At Foodshare, we feed the stomach, whereas in libraries, what do we do? We feed the mind,” Weedon said.
“Libraries — they’re in my blood. Librarians are my people, and I would like to return to libraries,” he added. Weedon also said he wants to return to Northeast Ohio, where his family owns a farm in Parkman.
Weedon was a public library director or deputy director for 18 years, including two Ohio posts as director of the Rocky River Public Library and deputy director of the Euclid Public Library, and a post in California as regional manager at the San Bernardino County Library.
Machie was asked to respond at the forum to negative publicity in the Detroit News concerning cost over-runs in that city’s library expansion project.
“We were going through some budget issues” and a change in the library directorship, she said, as revenue fell $5.8 million below projections.
Library employees had to be laid off, Detroit lost more than 200,000 residents and home values plummeted, she added.
Noting that their funding is 90 percent property tax-based, Machie said that those events “created a tsunami for us.”
“We went into crisis management,” she said, adding, “In a situation like that, you will expect a blame game.”
Machie was director of public services at the Detroit Public Library from 2000 to 2005, when she became deputy director there.
Last May, the Detroit Public Library Commission voted to negotiate to buy out her contract because of irregularities in an architect’s contract for the $2.3 million expansion.
That expansion was “criticized for lavish spending, including trash cans and chairs that cost $1,100 apiece,” according to the Detroit News.
Machie said committees of the library staff and board vetted all matters related to the expansion before the board approved the project.
More recently, the Detroit library board voted not to renew Machie’s contract when it expires April 21, but Machie said in an interview that she expects the board would retain her as an at-will employee after her contract expires.
Weedon and Machie said during the forum that they have extensive experience in library construction and renovation projects and in libraries with unionized staffs.
Machie and Weedon have applied to succeed Carlton A. Sears as director of the 16-branch Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County, where the staff is unionized. Sears will retire March 30, after 15 years as director of the Mahoning County system.
Twenty-five people applied for the directorship here, which requires a master’s degree in library science and library management experience and will pay $95,000 to $110,000 a year.
The local search committee interviewed eight semifinalists by Skype and selected three finalists and one alternate.
One finalist withdrew her application because she took another job, and the alternate was unable to attend the forum, but is still interested in the position.