Library groups sign agreement

Alex Coolman

NEWPORT BEACH -- The board of trustees of the Newport Beach Library and

the library’s fund-raising foundation have signed an official agreement

in an effort to resolve a disagreement that has divided the two groups

for six months.

Jim Wood, co-chairman of the library’s trustees, signed a preliminary

agreement at a meeting between the two groups in late March. It was only

on Monday, however, that the foundation signed an official “Memorandum of

Cooperation.”

The memo was “signed in a spirit, I think, of goodwill on both sides,”

said trustee Patrick Bartolic. “We’re excited, and I think they are.”

Foundation chairman Dave Carmichael could not be reached for comment

Friday.

However, foundation board member Lucille Kuehn said the protracted

wrangling had simply become tiresome.

“We want to get on with the business of the foundation, which is to

support the library,” she said.

The two sides finally moved toward a truce after falling out in October

over questions of funding and control.

At that time, the trustees expressed concern over the operating costs of

the foundation and moved to take a larger role in its operations.

The trustees went so far as to threaten to sever ties with the foundation

and evict the organization from its offices in the Central Library on

Avocado Avenue.

In January, city officials stepped into the fray. Mayor John Noyes held

court over a series of meetings, during which the two sides aired their

differences. And City Attorney Bob Burnham drafted the cooperation memo

that the parties have endorsed.

The memo tries “to clearly define the respective roles that each group

plays with respect to library functions,” Burnham said. “The trustees

have certain responsibilities and duties and the foundation has its

private entity role.”

The goal of the document, he said, is to ensure that “everybody realizes

where the lines of authority are.”

That sort of clarity has been sorely lacking in the long-running dispute,

and part of the ambiguity seems to be due to the complex nature of the

relationship between the two groups.

The foundation is a nonprofit, fund-raising organization that exists to

circumvent rules prohibiting government bodies from raising money. It is

an entity distinct from the library, with its own set of directors.

The interaction between the two organizations should, in theory, be a

cooperative endeavor. But both sides admit that communication across

institutional lines has been poor.

“When you’re working cooperatively on a project, everybody’s doing their

best to get it done, and sometimes they slip into roles that aren’t

specifically what’s called for by their charter,” said Burnham.

Specifically, the groups have squabbled over who should handle the

library’s Distinguished Lecture Series, what the nature of the

foundation’s fund-raising efforts should be, and a few other issues.

Library trustee Catherine Sarr said under the new agreement, both groups

will sponsor the lecture series.

“The intention is to continue running it the way we’re running it now,”

she said.

Burnham said he hopes the agreement, which reaffirms “the distinctly

different roles” of the two sides, will prevent this kind of confusion in

the future.