Above, members of the Southern Lehigh Public Library board of directors meet at the library on Tuesday, June 20, 2023. Pictured from left are board member Ellen Deebel (Lower Milford Township), attorney and library board solicitor Joe Leeson and board members Bruce Eames (Upper Saucon Township), Kathie Parsons (Southern Lehigh School District), John Schubert (Upper Saucon Township), Kat Moyer (Coopersburg borough), Tom Beil (Upper Saucon Township), Christopher Wayock (Southern Lehigh School District) and Patrick Leonard (Upper Saucon Township). Eames resigned from the board effective at the end of Tuesday’s meeting.
Update: This story has been updated to include a statement on her retirement provided by Lynnette Saeger.
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported that Christopher Wayock was elected board chair following Bruce Eames’ resignation Tuesday. Patrick Leonard was elected chairman of the Southern Lehigh Public Library board.
The Southern Lehigh Public Library Board of Directors Tuesday agreed to form a special committee to study a proposal to expand the library’s service area to include Lower Saucon Township, although the effort to do so may now be complicated by resignations that were subsequently tendered at the meeting.
The decision to analyze in further detail the pros and cons of potentially adding Lower Saucon Township was made following a suggestion by library board member Tom Beil, who represents Upper Saucon Township. Ultimately, the board decided that the committee will be comprised of three voting board members and two ex officio board members, and will be advised by solicitor Joe Leeson and Office of Commonwealth Libraries District Consultant Librarian Mark Sullivan, who was not in attendance at the meeting.
Beil is also Upper Saucon Township’s manager and his appointment to the library board this spring was controversial, both because he is a township employee and because he lives outside the library’s service area, which includes Upper Saucon Township, Lower Milford Township and the borough of Coopersburg. Together, those municipalities comprise the Southern Lehigh School District, which is the Southern Lehigh library’s other funding partner. Only SLSD and Upper Saucon Township fund at least 15 percent of the library’s annual operating budget, which state library code requires for board members to have full voting authority. Lower Milford Township’s and Coopersburg’s board members are ex officio members, which means their votes are mainly symbolic.
In addition to Beil, Upper Saucon resident Patrick Leonard–who is also an Upper Saucon Township employee–was appointed to the library board by the township’s board of supervisors in May.
Tuesday’s library board meeting was the first meeting for both men, as well as the first meeting for newly-appointed Lower Milford representative Ellen Deebel and newly-appointed SLSD representative Christopher Wayock, who is a member of the Southern Lehigh School Board.
At the start of the meeting, the other board members included Bruce Eames (Upper Saucon Township), John Schubert (Upper Saucon Township), Vickie Maund (Upper Saucon Township), Kathie Parsons (Southern Lehigh School District) and Kat Moyer (Coopersburg).
Bruce Eames announced during the latter part of Tuesday’s meeting that he was resigning from the board, effective at the end of the meeting, and Leonard was later elected to chair the board.
Eames himself had just replaced board member Candi Kruse as chair in the wake of Kruse’s departure from the board following its April meeting.
Upper Saucon Township supervisors and their solicitor said Kruse’s term was over as of Dec. 31 because of how board term limits are defined by the state library code, but a number of library supporters and Lower Saucon residents disagreed with the decision, with some citing Kruse’s commitment as a library volunteer in pleas that ultimately failed to sway the supervisors.
The supervisors also noted that there is nothing in state code or the library’s by-laws that prevent a township employee from serving on the board, although historically the position of library board member has been filled by residents.
Attorney and library board solicitor Joe Leeson addresses the board during Tuesday’s meeting. Pictured to his left is board member Ellen Deebel. At right are board members Bruce Eames and Kathie Parsons.
Board solicitor Joe Leeson said Tuesday that there is no residency requirement in the library’s by-laws that would prohibit Beil from serving as a board member.
Nevertheless, observers continued to criticize the appointments.
People feel “that this board has been packed,” said Upper Saucon resident Ashley Murphy, who questioned whether Beil’s appointment could be viewed as “cronyism.”
“It is very concerning to see the manipulation of the board to obtain desired votes,” said Laura Ray, a Lower Saucon Township resident who is also running for Lower Saucon Township Council. “It certainly appears highly unethical to me.”
Beil said that other non-residents were considered for the board seat he now occupies, but when pressed to name them, he refused to do so.
He also noted that even if the board decided to amend its by-laws to ban non-residents from serving, the amendment would have to be approved by all of its funding partners, including Upper Saucon Township.
“Very Soviet,” commented Schubert.
Tom Beil, center, who represents Upper Saucon Township on the Southern Lehigh Library Board of Directors, speaks during Tuesday’s board meeting. Pictured from left to right are board members John Schubert, Kat Moyer, Beil, Christopher Wayock and Patrick Leonard.
Beil further said that Lower Saucon residents who spoke at the meeting–all of whom advocated against Lower Saucon joining Southern Lehigh library–may be motivated by political agendas.
“(There’s) a big election in Lower Saucon Township,” he said, and “some of the politics of Lower Saucon Township are overflowing to this board.”
“That’s my personal opinion,” he added.
Eames then chided him, saying there was no need “to be offensive” toward citizens attending the meeting.
In his resignation letter, Eames wrote that he also resigned from “all Board sponsored fund-raising opportunities and sponsorships (i.e. Read Between The Wines, etc.) now and in the future.”
Read Between the Wines is the library’s largest annual fundraiser, and has been chaired by library board member Kat Moyer, who announced Tuesday that she will no longer be in charge of it.
Perhaps the most significant departure announced during the board meeting, however, was that of longtime Southern Lehigh Public Library Director Lynnette Saeger, who submitted notice of her retirement, effective June 30.
Saeger has been employed by the library for 34 years, during which she has overseen its extensive growth and played a role in all aspects of its operation.
“I feel honored and privileged to have worked alongside such dedicated and hard-working staff members, Board members and volunteers,” she said later, in an email. “I am proud to have been part of a team that provided excellent library service for the residents of our community.”
It was not immediately clear when the search for a director will begin or if the loss of Saeger’s extensive institutional knowledge could impact the work of the just-formed subcommittee.
It was also unclear if Saeger’s departure could have a ripple effect on staff at the library, however the meeting began with an employee asking the board to “vote no” to accepting Lower Saucon Township into its service area due to a “concern…that adequate resources and funding will not exist to secure the future of this library.”
Karen, who said she was worked at SLPL for over 20 years, told the board that “the past 18 months…has been the lowest in morale and the most stressful for staff during my tenure.”
During the meeting Saeger acknowledged that the library is currently shortstaffed in opposing a proposal by Beil to begin selling SLPL library cards to Lower Saucon Township residents.
“I just think it’s not a good situation,” said Beil of the fact that Lower Saucon residents currently only have the option to purchase library cards from Hellertown Area Library, for which they are eligible to receive a reimbursement from Lower Saucon Township.
Township residents are ineligible for cards that include the PA Access sticker–which allows patrons to use other libraries throughout the state–because Lower Saucon doesn’t have a home library. Under state library law, a home library is a funding-based designation, and Lower Saucon Township has been without one since the beginning of this year.
Hellertown Area Library was formerly the home library for township residents, but after Lower Saucon Township Council declined to adopt a new 5-year agreement with HAL in January 2022, HAL’s board of trustees petitioned the state’s Office of Commonwealth Libraries (OCL) to have the township removed from its service area. That request was granted and the removal took effect on Jan. 1, 2023. Lower Saucon Township officials have sued the OCL over the removal in a case that is currently before a federal court.
Over the past year-and-a-half, Lower Saucon Township has also donated $50,000 to the Southern Lehigh Public Library and expressed growing interest in joining it as a funding municipality with full services for LST residents, despite the fact that township residents who have addressed the subject have almost universally said they want HAL to be their home library.
The Southern Lehigh Library Board initially rejected the donation offer from Lower Saucon Township, but later accepted it under pressure from several of its current funding partners who have made known their belief that the additional revenue could be of financial benefit.
Lower Saucon residents who continue to advocate on behalf of HAL have praised its convenient location within Saucon Valley, its proximity to Saucon Valley schools and its programs for families, while urging the board to conduct a thorough cost-benefits analysis before entering into any funding agreement with Lower Saucon Township.
The same individuals have often argued that if a major concern for Lower Saucon officials is the cost of library services, then adopting the HAL agreement should be reconsidered.
The agreement proposed by HAL that was rejected 4-1 by Lower Saucon Township Council in January 2022 would have cost the township approximately $100,000 a year for 5 years.
The proposed agreement that LST council sent to the SLPL board in April was a 10-year agreement costing $750,000 that would have included a $250,000 up-front bonus, with the money for the bonus coming from the township’s COVID relief funds. The vote to send that proposal to the SLPL board for consideration was 4-1, with councilwoman Priscilla deLeon dissenting.
DeLeon has said she supports renewing the township’s relationship with HAL, is running on a re-election platform that includes that promise and spoke at Tuesday’s SLPL board meeting.
“Be careful who you play with,” she said. “The writing is on the wall for all to see, including this board.”
The terms of the proposal from Lower Saucon Township also included a penalty of five years’ worth of payments if the agreement were to be terminated early by either the township or the library.
The library board neither accepted nor rejected that proposal, but in mid-April voted to schedule a meeting with its funding partners to discuss its concerns about whether accepting the terms would be financially feasible. Concerns about the need to hire additional staff and purchase additional library resources played a prominent role in the board discussion of the proposal’s terms.
Prior to Tuesday’s vote to form the special committee, board members agreed to abandon the earlier plan to hold a meeting by a vote of 7-1-1, with Deebel abstaining and Kathie Parsons voting no.
Although there were concerns that it would be political, and the board wasn’t able to find a neutral venue willing to host the meeting, Moyer said she still felt having it “was a good idea.”
Moyer reported during the meeting that in addition to the individuals who spoke against SLPL partnering with Lower Saucon Township, the board had received 35 new emails opposing that idea as of Tuesday afternoon. Since the beginning of the year she said the board has received approximately 110 emails from Southern Lehigh and Saucon Valley residents, all in opposition.
“Nobody supports this nonsense!” exclaimed an exasperated John Schubert at one point during the meeting.
“I don’t know what’s in it for the Upper Saucon supervisors,” he said. “Financially, (the Lower Saucon Township proposal) is a turd. Financially it is a Trojan horse that will bring economic hardship to this library. In terms of community-building, it is so breathtakingly unethical for us to do this.”
To view Tuesday’s meeting agenda, visit the board meeting page on the library’s website. Board meetings are typically held on the third Tuesday of the month at 6:30 p.m. in the library’s meeting room at 3200 Preston Lane, Center Valley, PA 18034.
The current board officers are: Patrick Leonard, president; Kathie Parsons, vice president; Vickie Maund, secretary; John Schubert, treasurer.
Lower Saucon Township resident and former Bethlehem Area librarian Mary Dawson speaks during the public comment portion of Tuesday’s Southern Lehigh Public Library board meeting. Dawson said she felt “ashamed” and “embarrassed” by the “debacle” she believes actions by Lower Saucon Township have put the SLPL board through. She described the council as “arrogant,” “stubborn,” and unwilling to listen to community members but willing to litigate. Referring to a proposal by Lower Saucon Township that was previously before the board before it expired May 4, Dawson said it was “not financially feasible” for the SLPL to accept it, and that even if it did it was unclear if the Office of Commonwealth Libraries would approve expanding the service area across the county line to include Lower Saucon Township.
