Peninsula Public Library fight set to escalate

Daily Point

Elected officials plan to ask state to remove trustees

County and state elected officials are prepared to take the fight over management of the Peninsula Public Library to another level.

Peninsula, in Lawrence, has been at the center of a gathering firestorm, as community members have objected to how trustees were appointed and the decisions they've made, while the library remains without a director and any new incoming books.

The situation has worsened more recently, as employees have continued to leave, making it difficult to even keep the library open. Last week, three library trustees held a "last minute meeting" to appoint a librarian in charge. Days later, that librarian, Pat Murphy, said she was resigning. But by Monday morning, she was back at the library, The Point confirmed.

Amid the chaos, Nassau County Legislature Presiding Officer Howard Kopel, Assemb. Ari Brown and State Sen. Patricia Canzoneri-Fitzpatrick met last week on a video call with state librarian Lauren Moore, who oversees New York's public library system, and her staff.

The meeting, sources told The Point, was productive — but left the situation unresolved. Now, Kopel, Brown and Canzoneri-Fitzpatrick are preparing a petition in which they plan to ask the state to remove trustees and take whatever emergency actions are necessary to keep the library functioning, while paving the way for a change in governance.

"We feel very strongly that we need to remove these individuals and put in somebody who can keep the doors of that library open," Canzoneri-Fitzpatrick said. The petition likely will come from Kopel and Brown, who live in the district and have standing.

"The goal is for them to put in whatever kind of emergency management necessary to preserve the institution from collapse, which I think is happening in real time," Kopel told The Point.

Brown said he and his fellow electeds were seeking "the quickest and most responsible path forward" for the library.

In the meantime, however, the trustees might take action on their own. Multiple sources told The Point that the board is considering efforts to remove Akiva Lubin as Peninsula's board president, while keeping him on as a trustee.

Lubin had been expected to run for reelection in May, but after the board, including Lubin, changed its bylaws to allow longer appointed terms, he resigned from one board seat and was appointed to another open one, giving him a term that lasted through mid-2029. Last month, the state Education Department found the bylaws change had violated state laws.

When informed of the possibility that the trustees might remove Lubin as president, but keep him on the board, Kopel told The Point it didn't go far enough.

"He has to go," Kopel said. "Even if he did resign as president, procedures would ensue to push him out as a trustee."

Canzoneri-Fitzpatrick agreed.

"I think he's proven that he is not acting in the best interest of the library district and that to me warrants removal," she said. "That to me is a basic duty of any trustee or fiduciary, and he hasn't done that."

— Randi F. Marshall randi.marshall@newsday.com

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Final Point

Political fallout continues among Suffolk Dems

The Suffolk County Democratic Committee Monday threatened to sue its own Islip Town committee if it held its organizational meeting on Wednesday.

In response, Islip Town Democratic Committee chair Leigh-Anne Barde told The Point she would reschedule the meeting — grudgingly.

Barde, a longtime loyalist of county chair Rich Schaffer, insists she is now being targeted by him after backing Southold Town Democratic chair Kathryn Casey Quigley's unsuccessful bid to oust Schaffer last month.

Barde initially scheduled her committee's organization meeting for Oct. 7, before the Oct. 12-22 window allowed in the county committee's bylaws, she said, to preemptively prevent Schaffer from appointing voting members to the Islip committee to oust her as leader. The county chair can make appointments to vacant committee positions 20 days following the chair election, but even that point is contested by some Democrats. Because this year's election for county chair took place on Sept. 22, the legal window for town committees to hold organizational meetings is Oct. 12-22.

A letter Barde received from the county committee Monday warns that her Sept. 30 notice scheduling the town committee's organization meeting for Oct. 7 is "defective" and that the county committee "reserves all rights and remedies ... including the pursuit of appropriate legal relief ..." The letter says that the county committee "will not recognize as valid any officer elections" and concludes that the county committee is "willing to resolve this cooperatively ..."

Barde said town committees in prior years held organizational meetings outside the time frame designated in the bylaws, a practice the county committee acknowledged in a memo to all town committee chairs. That memo states organizational meetings must comply with election law. "A practice that has been followed for years does not become lawful because it is familiar. 'This is how we have always done it' is not a defense ..."

Barde said the pressure to change the meeting date isn't procedural but payback for her bucking Schaffer.

"They want control," Barde said. "This is retaliation. There's no way to mistake it or cover it up."

In a statement to The Point, Bryan Sokolowski, political director of the county Democratic committee, said Barde is confused about a procedural issue. "[W]e followed the bylaws precisely when our own leadership was on the line, ensuring a fair and orderly county convention," Sokolowski said. "We expect those same rules to be applied in Islip, and despite raising our concerns directly, we have yet to receive a response. Let's stop taking attention and energy away from our Democratic campaigns over internal, clear-cut protocols. The Suffolk County Democratic Committee is focused on electing Democrats in November, nothing else."

Meanwhile, Democratic candidates across Suffolk are heading down the electoral homestretch. Barde said her committee held a meet-the-candidates event Saturday night, and Casey Quigley said her committee held a fundraiser recently in Greenport for East End candidates.

Casey Quigley said Democrats should not be divided with less than a month before Election Day. She said she still has not gotten a call from Schaffer, a sign that he isn't working to unify the party. "A leader unifies and this does nothing to get Democrats elected in November," Casey Quigley said.

And there are other town committee chair seats in Suffolk that may be contested. In Brookhaven, at least two people are vying to replace chair Anthony Portesy, who is stepping down after having moved to Melville. Portesy, a current Conservative Party nominee for state Supreme Court, 10th District, is the former Democratic Party nominee for county clerk. Portesy took the judgeship nomination as a procedural move to get off the ballot for clerk, a move widely seen as part of a backroom deal to clear the field for incumbent County Clerk Vincent Puleo, a Conservative with Republican backing.

Southampton Democratic chair Gordon Herr and East Hampton Democratic chair Anna Skrenta said they won't seek reelection, but neither of those seats is expected to be contested. Both Herr and Skrenta said they decided long before last month's election for county chair not to seek another term. Sources said former CD1 candidate John Avlon is seeking the Southampton leadership position while current East Hampton vice chair Michael Koegler is running for his town's top post.

— Mark Nolan mark.nolan@newsday.com

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