The public has a right to know

Norman Bernstein

The Havre-Hill County Library has been a focus of social life in the city and county for the more than 30 years that Bonnie Williamson was the library director.

She made the library the weekly center for dozens of public service and assistance programs and year-round free arts, humanities and current events programs. Children's programs brought dozens of young people into the library every week to enjoy the interactive story-telling, music, dance, poetry, and writing events. It was a vibrant and dynamic place.

Under Williamson, the library was always there for the community. If need be, the doors never closed, literally. It was a place of sanctuary, where one could escape the pressures of the day. It was a place of learning, where one could sometimes answer important questions. It was a place where one could get help in solving problems, where one could learn to help oneself, where you could learn to do your tax return, to fill out a job application or to write your resumé. It was a place were online university students were regularly mentored. It was where our children could learn to enjoy reading and to love the thousands of books in the children's section, or where they could take a class in creative movement, or creative writing. It is where you could learn to use a computer, to use the internet, to watch a film, to be creative in an art class, or to join a book reading group in the long winter months. That kind of management and that kind of library had resulted in numerous community and state awards and recognitions for the library, and for Williamson personally, including the Human Rights Award from the Montana State University, the Montana Library of the Year Award, the Montana Library Association's Librarian of the Year Award, the North Star Award for Excellence in Community Leadership and Service and the Soroptimist International Woman of Distinction Award.

The Havre-Hill County Library is now a radically different place, and has been for the past too-many months, and it is important to understand why. After requests, the Board of the Havre-Hill County Library is still not letting the public know how and why their firing of the recently hired director of the library took place. Their response has been that it is a personnel matter and the public is not entitled to know about such things.

The fact is that this board has a mistaken notion about who the library belongs to and what their role is supposed to be. The library and its management is an important public trust that demands transparency.

It would not be fair to "Monday morning quarterback" the board's choice for director and their rush to fill the position left by Bonnie Williamson when she retired after 37 years. It was clear to all that Williamson had left an indelible and positive imprint on the library and that her shoes would be difficult to fill. It was clear that the salary allowed by the city and county was significantly below both national and state averages. It was also clear that there were several library director vacancies in this part of the state and there was some worry about not being able to find a suitable candidate. And they didn't, by their own admission.

But the public is entitled to know why so much money was spent on what was, ultimately, and maybe initially, a lost cause, and why the board allowed the library to be so mismanaged all these months, and, most importantly, why they allowed such a dramatic reversal to take place.

For the board to hide behind the "no comment on the advice of our attorney" bromide is neither valid nor acceptable.

Bonnie Williamson worked tirelessly to make the library of and for the community, and it is unacceptable that her efforts have been so undermined by the events of the past several months.

The public is entitled to better management of the library, and better information, and we urge the board to speak up and let the people of Havre and Hill County know what's going on.

Libraries should not be run by legal niceties as perceived by city and county attorneys. Libraries are too important and essential for a community's well-being. They need to be run in the clear light of day.

(Norman Bernstein is a roving correspondent for the Havre Daily News.)