MANATEE COUNTY – Despite having candidates to fill seven vacancies on the nine-seat county Library Advisory Board, county commissioners declined to make any appointments or reappoint two candidates to the board.
Library Services Manager Tammy Parrott presented the applications to the county board of commissioners during a Jan. 23 meeting. While she said it was nice that there were multiple applicants for some of the vacant seats, including the one designated for an Anna Maria Island or Longboat Key resident, some of the seats had only one applicant. Parrott asked commissioners if they were ready to make an appointment to those seats or if they would like to open it back up to see if any more applicants put their hats in the ring for consideration.
Of the seven open seats, one is for a city of Bradenton resident, one for a city of Palmetto resident, one representing the Island communities, one for a Lakewood Ranch/Myakka resident, one for a librarian with a Master of Library Science degree, one for a parent/guardian of a child currently enrolled in Manatee County schools and one for a parent/guardian of a child that is homeschooled in Manatee County.
Only the seats representing the Island communities, Lakewood Ranch/Myakka and the librarian received multiple applications. The applicants for the city of Bradenton and Palmetto seats were seeking reappointment to the board. Putting their names up for consideration for the Island communities’ seat were Ashley Dawson, Nancy Deal, Karen Moss and Corey Wright.
Commissioner Kevin Van Ostenbridge said he was “not satisfied with any of the applicants on the list” and recommended reopening the application process.
“This is the most robust applicant pool I’ve seen since I started working at the county,” Parrott said. “I was very pleased with the response.”
She noted that the current Library Advisory Board expires at the end of January and she was planning for the new appointees to be in place and begin work in February. She said she was happy with the applications received.
“I don’t see many individuals on this list who are like-minded with this board,” Van Ostenbridge said.
Parrott said three seats are expiring at the end of the month. Currently, there are five people on the board, which is planned to be expanded to nine in 2024. She added that with three seats expiring on the current board, the advisory board would be left with only two members in February with commissioners not making any appointments.
Rather than amending his motion to table the entire discussion until new applicants could be found for all of the seats, Van Ostenbridge said, “I’m not willing to amend my motion. Some may consider it hostile if they like but I would rather the board not meet at all than have a board that’s going to meet and make decisions that are not in line with this county commission.”
In a Jan. 23 email, President of Friends of the Lakewood Ranch Library Sue Ann Miller said that she felt Van Ostenbridge’s comments could possibly be seen as discrimination since no board member asked him to define “like-minded.”
“I applied for the AMI position on the county’s Library Advisory Board,” Holmes Beach resident Nancy Deal said. “I would not be upset if someone more qualified than I was considered but none of the AMI applicants were considered.”
“I have no idea what I could have written on my application form that indicated any kind of ‘minded,’ let alone ‘not like-minded’ with BOCC,” Deal said, questioning if the decision made by the board was a form of bias against Island residents.
Commissioner George Kruse, who gave the lone dissenting vote on Van Ostenbridge’s motion to table the discussion, said that he felt the application process was well-advertised and the applications were well-received with one of the applicants for reinstatement on the board serving since 2017.
“These are people who clearly care,” Kruse said.
He also noted that the advisory board is tied to a millage rate being collected by the county and he worries that the county cannot collect millage due to failure of the board to meet. He advised that the commissioners should have the county attorney look at the ordinance governing the board before making a decision. County commissioners voted 6-1 to table the discussion.
