Letters to the Editor
Trustees welcomes public inquiry

To the Editor:

On July 12, in an open meeting and after a four-month period of coaching, counseling and disciplinary actions to correct persistent job performance deficiencies, the Ashby Free Public Library Board of Trustees found sufficient cause to terminate the employment of library director Marja LePoer.

Although the board typically prefers not to comment on personnel issues, Ms. LePoer has made her termination a public issue so we are taking a moment to briefly respond to her various allegations against the board.

The board has, on several occasions brought to Ms. LePoer's attention performance issues that required improvement. The specific performance issues the board required the director to remedy included organization and neatness of the library interior; the effectiveness of communication with the board and with library patrons; timeliness and completeness of reports; developing and executing plans for day to day and long-term library operations. All of these issues are reflected in Ms. LePoer's performance evaluations and detailed performance plans, which are now public record as Ms. LePoer elected to have the issue of her performance discussed in open session.

While it has been alleged that the board was "micromanaging" the library, such allegation is untrue. The board, in its role as library trustees, noticed problems with the library that were not being corrected. The board takes its obligation to the Town seriously, specifically to ensure that the town funds allocated for library services are effectively spent and to ensure to patrons the best library services those funds can provide. The library board members are simply elected citizens of the town of Ashby who have an interest in and commitment to the town's library. Having to supervise a town employee, evaluate performance and eventually consider terminating her employment was difficult, time-consuming and emotionally draining task that none of us enjoyed.

The board welcomes the public inquiry called for by Ms. LePoer and her husband. As Ms. LePoer elected to have her disciplinary hearing open to the public all of the documents introduced at the hearing are public records, including Ms. LePoer's performance evaluations over the past five years. As demonstrated by the evidence from the hearing, the board made every effort to avoid termination, including identifying areas of improvement in Ms. LePoer's performance evaluations, offering our assistance to Ms. LePoer only to be rebuffed, offering Ms. LePoer a probationary period, providing detailed performance guidelines for Ms. LePoer, and providing progressive discipline to Ms. LePoer so that the need for improvement in her performance was clear. Ms. LePoer failed to improve her performance, failed to recognize the trustee's supervisory authority and refused to acknowledge our legitimate concerns with her performance. As such, the board was left with no decision but to terminate the library director's employment.

The board truly wishes this had not devolved to the level it has. Conspiracies, harassment and injustice have nothing to do with the library director's termination and those who would have you believe that are merely diverting attention from the real issues. Notably, over Ms. LePoer's tenure as library director she has never raised any allegations of harassment by the board and the board vehemently denies these assertions. These allegations surfaced only when the library director finally realized that her failure to improve her performance may lead to her termination. We are saddened by this turn of events and hope that the public will see these allegations for what they are - distractions from the truth and the real issue at hand, specifically the library director's performance.

Ashby Free Public Library Board of Trustees, Maureen Davi, chairman, Sally Bauman,

Lisa Hogan,

Paul McGrail,

John Mickola, Matthew Alfond,

Dwight Horan