Library Board Follow Up
Thanks to Executive Committee member Brooklynn White for this write-up following the latest Library Board meeting on May 14th. This is an editorial piece and does not reflect the views or opinions of the Sumner County Democratic Party. Ready to get involved? Find Action Items at the end of this write-up.
May 14th members of the public once again attended a Sumner County Library Board meeting to speak on proposed collections policy amendments and the proposed financial policy. We showed up to a packed room with a news camera, a whole lot of chatter, pride flags, and a general energy indicating people were ready to have their voice heard and condemn the policies being discussed. The attendance was so high that the board meeting was moved to the legislative chambers- a move that Chairman Joanna Daniels described as a courtesy before telling the public to be “respectful” and threatening to have individuals removed by the three law enforcement officers present if they did not comply. Sixteen individuals signed up requesting to make public comments, leading Chairman Daniels to set the time maximum for each comment to 2 minutes and to time and enforce that timeframe personally. Individuals touched on a range of concerns from the blatant transphobia in the collections policy to concerns that the financial policy was misleading by including dates it was “approved by the board of library trustees”.
When discussion about the collections policy began, Joanna provided a new version of these amendments to the board, of which the other board members nor the public had ever seen.
Board Member Paul McCoy addresses his concerns about the new version of the policies Chairwoman Joanna Daniels brought.
Joanna was entirely disrespectful both to board members and the public, garnering her own warnings by police presence to be respectful, and she made disparaging comments about gender identity and transgender individuals. Chairman Daniels made reference to other state policies and guidance by the Tennessee Secretary of State regarding access to bathrooms and inclusion in sports, and she shared her personal belief that these state policies create a mandate that must be applied in principle to our public libraries.
Joanna repeatedly spoke about mandates given by commisioner Jeremy Mansfield and attempted to speak on behalf of the entire commission with what she feels is the agenda of the commission for the library board. When she was asked about the fact that the policies she brought to the board meeting had been changed from the policy that went through the policy subcommittee and was published publicly prior to the meeting, she went on an angry tirade about how changes are brought to meetings all the time and demanded that they would continue with her version. Joanna never moved to amend the proposed amendments to include her edits. She bypassed this Parliamentary procedure entirely and forced the board to consider and vote on the policy as she had personally amended. She repeatedly stated that both these policies had gone through committee and also that they were her own.
Joanna Daniels defends her changes to the proposed policies.
Daniels was purposefully deceitful and talked down to board members about what these policies actually said, despite it being the first time they saw edits. Joanna made it out that board members had chosen not to take time to read the policies prior to the meeting even though she sprung entirely new changes onto the board. In all, the board had 2 separate policies with 2 different copies of each. The publicly available copy had strike throughs and edits in green, but the new copy they were provided did not have the green edits. Instead, her newest changes were in highlight so it was entirely unclear to board members which parts were original, which parts were changes passed through subcommittee, and which parts were Joanna’s version. I would also like to note that within the 19 page document Joanna split into 2 separate policy votes, there were entirely new policies such as the financial policy that she made as it’s own policy, a new policy for collections that she made to the current Sumner County Library policies, 3 pages worth of standing policy that she was striking, individual words and phrases she was amending, adding, or striking, and the establishment of a new content challenge policy that would require content challenges to be decided by the board but with no detailed process for what this would look like. The collections policy Joanna brought forth has since been made available and it is entirely different from the previously available “collections policy” pages that were amendments to current library policy. Joanna kept repeatedly stating that her policy amendments were not related to library bylaws, and it is now clear why she said that.
Ultimately the collections policy was tabled to go back through the policy committee and it will be brought up at the next Library Board meeting in July. Members of the public that attended the meeting made overwhelmingly clear their intention to be at the next meeting and any meeting necessary to voice their concerns about the proposed collection policy.
Next the fundraising policy was discussed. The fundraising policy that was presented by Joanna Daniels had not fully gone through legal since Joanna made her own changes. The members of the board were rushed to make a vote and discuss at the meeting without being able to review beforehand. The policy is requiring idemnity insurance for those who want to fundraise and Joanna herself was unclear of what is considered “fundraising” because she says donations do not count in this. Joanna also purposefully mislead board members when she was adamant the fundraising policy was not pertaining to activity off library campus, but the copy the board received yesterday with Joanna’s edits still say “on library grounds or off library premises". I have since emailed with Joanna who says this section was only designed to clarify that the Friends of the Library are free to continue operating as usual both on and off premises and that the policy itself is only for those wanting to fundraise on library policy. Joanna sent me a fundraising policy from a library that she says she feels is a good comparison, but their policy is specific to only one library rather than an oversight board for many libraries and they do not have an insurance requirement. There is also a policy that can be found online from the Athol Public Library in Athol Massachusetts that is nearly identical and has the same adopted by date at the bottom, leading individuals that were present at the library board meeting to question whether this initial financial policy format was actually work bummed from another public library and then amended to be used for the Sumner County Library Board. Ultimately the Fundraising policy was passed by the library board with Jackie Wilbur, Paul McCoy, and Shannon Burgdorf being the only “no” votes. The verdict is still out on what the process will actually look like regarding the fundraising policy application, and I have asked for clarification on when it will officially take effect, when and where applications will be discussed, if they will be open for public comment, and who these applications should go to. My initial email response to questions I asked from Joanna was met with hostility and a condescending tone, but she did state that “change is hard,” so I guess that is that.
Overall, the board meeting was entirely dysfunctional at best. Beyond the fact that she antagonizes the public who attends meetings and talks to board members asking her questions as if they are school children she is belittling, Joanna very clearly has no capability of carrying out the role of chair. She amends rules for how long the public has to speak without ever formalizing this with a vote. Joanna adds items to the agenda and discusses them without the board members having relevant materials- during the April special scheduled meeting, she read off emails sent to her and proposed her own Hendersonville Interim Library Director Candidate without ever providing the board the relevant materials. When asked about the resume for the proposed candidate, she offered to email it later even though she was asking for a vote to give her permission to go ahead and sign the paperwork to hire her intended candidate right then. In this latest May meeting, she rattled on about Tennessee code that she then would not share with the board stating they were “her notes,” she admitted 6 members of the board were appointed to the board as single-issue additions (alluding to that issue being content censorship), and she repeatedly shared her desire to cut out our library directors as the “middle man” and take decisions about our library directly to the board. Joanna stated “the buck stops here.” She snickered and smirked after stating she changed the term “censor” to “review” on advisement and has repeatedly shared that she altered the financial policy because it could have fallen outside the scope of control as it was previously written.
Joanna’s conduct and the way she spoke to the public was so egregious that one of the police officers there asked her to be respectful to the audience on more than one occasion and a number of attendees walked out. Joanna has created a total breakdown in trust between the library board and the community and will continue to erode trust in the commission. Joanna ostracized our library directors with her repeated remarks about the necessity for the board to protect children and to take on content challenges themselves. She repeatedly shared her opinion that the library directors were not currently doing enough to protect children and fully intends to cut them out of the collections challenge process. She happily is stripping the library directors of resources by attempting to restrict fundraising and require special insurance policies that hamper fundraising efforts and her desire to remove the American Library Association as a tool for library directors in the collections policy.
As a final note, Joanna Daniels appointment is up in November (although her allies on the board reappointed her as the Chair in the meantime and there were no other Chair nominations) and many are wondering whether the county commission with chose to reappoint her or pick another candidate that will help steer the board back to serving our diverse libraries and community as a whole.
If after watching the meeting or reading through the policy, you feel inclined to reach out to your representatives, you can email the county commission at countycommissioners@sumnercountytn.gov or you can find the list of individual commissioners on the commission website. You can email the entire library board at libraryboardmembers@sumnercountytn.gov or if you are hoping to reach out to the chair directly, you can email joanna.daniels@sumnercountytn.com.
