THE GREAT LIBRARY MYSTERY
Lake Geneva has a library of quite historical note, as well as considerable controversy over the years, as it has experienced periods of financial skullduggery and even a redesign of the Frank Lloyd Wright design interior (the current leadership wanted to change parts of the exterior as well but was prevented by an incensed public). The library has a board of directors and a Head Librarian. The former financial scandal that shook the library to its foundations took place twenty years ago, or so. An employee made off with over a hundred thousand dollars. The matter was pretty hushed up, the employee discharged (to head out of state to parts unknown) and things went back to ‘normal.’ No trial, no jail, no repayment of anything that ever took place, not to this newspaper’s ability to discover such things.
The library has a city-approved board and gets the majority of its funding from the city. Much quieter and way in the background is the old library Foundation Board. It was set up tons of years ago to provide an endowment so that when the library went through difficult times it could fall back on the endowment. This secretive foundation is a private 501c (3) corporation and is therefore not required to publish anything about its existence or its funding, except to the IRS once a year, and that is only a report about what it makes in revenue, which is next to nothing. However, and it’s a big however, this very quiet foundation has more than a million dollars in the bank, which it had for many years. It seems that a lot of the wealthy people around the lake paid money into it over the years.
The current director (the Head Librarian) claims to know nothing about this foundation, what it has, who serves on the board, or what it’s up to. Quite literally, when called last week she said that she knows nothing about it and it’s ‘none of her business.’ Wow! That report was a shocker and cannot have any truth to it because of what comes next. It seems that the younger new members of the board, whose names are still confidential…although they won’t be for much longer, want to dissolve the foundation and pay out the money. They wanted a mobile library (bookmobile) but that got shot down in the voting, and then they decided they wanted to give the money to the YMCA, the library itself and this fictional children’s zoo to be located on the Hillmoor property (like just about every other fictional organization wants a piece of). What about the public’s trust? What about why all those wealthy donors, and some not so wealthy, gave money to support the library over the years?
What about a Head Librarian who sits in her office covering her eyes, and ears but not her mouth? Where’s the money and how is it to be adjudicated if it’s not going to be the funding for a foundation any longer? This sort of alleged action, with more than a million dollars of Geneva Lake citizen’s money at stake and risk, should not be decided by a bunch of unknown board members. The city needs to take this back, even though the foundation is a private 501c(3). A senior board member, whom we won’t name, and the only board member we’ve been able to find out about yet, went to the city attorney to complain. Dan Draper ‘took the matter under advisement,’ which is what Draper is truly known for, other than simply going along with much of the city’s political leadership nonsense.
Don’t forget that this same library leadership wanted a parking lot built along the eastern portion of the facility to accommodate six or seven vehicles. The library continues its entertaining but completely ‘dumb and dumber’ sort of conduct in making decisions. Library support money needs to be for the library!
