hello everyone we're about have a live to be between three candidates running for the board of library because we however there are only two seats so the voters will have a very important choice to me on april fourth which is why we're having this l debate so you can educate yourself about who you may want to vote for i'm joanna jewell is senior multi me a journalist for the belmont citizen herald and wicked local belmont dot com and i'm here tonight with roger moderator he is the host of the belmont media center podcast community conversations he's also a columnist and attorney and a very active member of the belmont community welcome roger thank you joanna glad to be here i'm  going to introduce you now to kathy kohei and gail man and david steve ater who will each give their opening statements we're going to start with kathy thank you thank you for hosting tonight session my name's kathy cohen and i'm running for reelection for the library board i'm currently in the chair and have been fortunate to serve for the last three years to correspond to bill and he said the board of the border really to oversee the business management of the library hire the  director and chair a policy development oversee the budget during my time on the board we've had tremendous accomplishments we've hired a new director we've completed the development of a long range plan outlining the five year programs and services we've instilled a new discipline in terms of physical management we have merged library facilities we've completed a few usability study redesign the website and created new partnerships with the town we've done that through th facilities consolidation but also with some of the programs that we've developed one by one belmont huge success across all the community groups are in bloom which is coming out we've done a home grown book delivering so lots of programs on a core focus over the last three years and as a result the library usage is out so you'll see on our annual report that we are the eleventh best circulating library twelfth children's program in the state huge growth and you circulation strong participation over thirty percent growth and programs and participation so really a community resource that really everybody benefits from which is why i run because the services that are provides to all of the members of our of our town core is focusing on programs and services that's been really a focus of of of ours and a strong focus for me over the last three years programs and services drive the need for a facility and so it's important to look at what is that you're offering to the community and what the community wants the hard facts i think as folks in as a building is in need of significant investment required investment in infrastructure as part of the few usability study we have recommended not only the feasibility group but also the trustees are recommending a new construction partnership with the town will be even more important as we move for and balancing the needs of the high school and the other capital projects the police d p w the library and many others i'm committed to working across the town collaboratively with town groups with the community and with the fellow trustees to find the decisions that are best for the community and for the town at large thank you kathy gayle you're on how i am gayle man candidate for reelection is a library trustee kathy and i have been working together for the past three years so some of my remarks might be repetitive of kathy i'd like to thank you joanna and the citizen herald for sponsoring this debate and for everyone that's taking the time to watch i've been on the board since two thousand and fifteen and i've been secretary of the board since two thousand and fifteen my husband steve clay on ski and i have been part of this community for thirty eight years our two children went through the belmont public schools and of course were regular users of the library i served as treasurer of the  belmont high p t o and i have served on the board of the belmont foundation for education i retired this month after a fulfilling and successful thirty eight year legal career i look forward to having more time for public service as well as for my family and for pursuing personal interests there are many traits our voters look for in their elected officials i think an important one is passion and i have been passionate about all that i do including my passion for reading and libraries the library is unique is that in that it's services that enriches the lives of patrons of all ages and backgrounds i have worked with my fellow trustees in the library director to increase programs and services we have expanded digital services we have a redesigned and improved website and the library now offers evening hours for the children's room you should use it statistics demonstrate the success of our efforts belmont has the eleventh best direct circulation in massachusetts and that's compared to large cities and towns like boston and cambridge and almost two thirds of our residents have library cards now there is much discussion in town about whether and when we might have a new library in the short term we must do our best to maintain the current facility within available budgets as we have been doing and will continue to do i hope you have visited the library recently and seen the many improvements to the available space unfortunately the building is over fifty years old and major systems are nearing or at the end of their used to useful life the town is faced with expanding significant sums just to keep major systems operational and this for a facility that was not built to accommodate the service we recently completed a feasibility study if kathy said it and it provides useful updated information to the trustees in the town on options for the current site the transparent process solicited input from the community by way of survey stakeholder meetings and open forums but i understand the competing capital needs faced by belmont and the concerns of taxpayers i also appreciate that capital projects take a lot of time the study was a necessary first step in a complex process as trustee i commit to work with all stakeholders and explore all possible sources of funding both public and private to realize the communities dream for a modern building that will be a welcoming adaptable space that media center for having us here my name is david steeves reader and i am a candidate for a library trustee i entered the race because i believe that my leadership experience and my focus on raising private funds are actually what is needed to get a new library off the ground the it's great with the library has accomplished over the last period of time one of the things that was not happy and it is the building of the new library and i think we're going to need a different approach in order to get that done and i'll talk more about that my family has lived in belmont since one thousand nine hundred five so over twenty years my wife catherine i have four boys all of whom are in or have attended belmont public schools i've worked in the health care industry for the last twenty then currently with athenahealth in watertown where i've led sales and marketing teams for the last seven years i've been involved with all kinds of different things in the town including town meeting and coaching the kids in sports and have been past chair of my kids preschool board of trustees i entered this race because i believe i can make a difference for belmont i am also a big believer in the role that libraries play particularly in the community and as technology changes  as libraries change our library will change the role will change the thing that hasn't changed is the role that the library plays as a community hub we have already really proven this and in in belmont we've shown in the last year have a big increase i think it was something like thirty percent in program participation in twenty one percent in meetings and attendance of the library so so good things have happened with the programs as it was just said the library feasibility committee recently voted unanimously to recommend a new building on the current site the existing building is a poor candidate for renovation and major structural deficiencies we're going to need a new building that is modern in his flexible to adapt to the needs of the next fifty years and for  whole host of reasons i think this is the right choice for belmont i think we need a building on the current site we have but we have looked at other alternative sites and have not been able to find a alternative so the reality is a lot's needs to happen to be able to convince people that this plan makes sense we need a building committee in order to do design and schematics when you start raising private donations now doing this is going to tell vision and energy and if elected i looked to be appointed to the as  the trustees liaison to the library foundation board and devote a significant amount of my time to raising the private funds that i think are necessary to get this project off the ground so thank you thank you david now roger is going to go over tonight format tonight's format well involve joe and i asking each of the candidates a question each candidate will have two minutes to respond to that question at the end of those two minute responses if anyone feels that there is in absolute need to make a response to something that was erroneously asserted we will provide that opportunity but there will not be a time to response is period at the end of the questioning when we simply run out of time i imagine we have more questions than we've got time we will come back and have closing statements the questions will be posed in alphabetical order that's right and i don't think roger mentioned this little warning now i will ring it very softly when you have about thirty seconds to go so i have the time or ready first question we'll go to kathy and the first question is the belmont media center provides important elect tronic and media services to the belmont community however it has a standalone building on which you pay substantial rent would you approve or disapprove of giving the belmont media center a permanent home in the new library well we do have a great partnership with the media center there run a supporter of our of  the programs and i think we'd have to look at space right so we we are a land starved company or another company community and we have we are committed to staying on the site that we are we just completed a few usability study and looked at the different programming means that we need for the library so we could consider how we could leverage services and incorporate some of the work that you do in the media center but we would be hard pressed to give you a dedicated space without giving up something that is required and a core competency and capability for the library but you know anything's possible as were when we looked at  flexibility right so having space without hard walls things that are movable so that there is the opportunity to leverage the space more efficiently and with a future view because who knows what ten years preliminary drawing is thirty eight thousand square feet and the current library is about twenty nine and there's a lot of space you need to give access so we're not going to have that much more usable space hopefully it'll be much more flexible and adaptable and so and it was designed to accommodate program services that the community in the open forums told us the community really wanted and so while it would be absolutely lovely to have you be a neighbor and we would love to have you be a neighbor  we really have to look at what the space requirements were at the time given that the those plans that are remain on the current site if we were able to move to a different side and plan for a larger facility things might be very different thank you are you watching so i think that giving the belmont media center space in the library is an absolutely fantastic idea  think that what it comes down to is frankly the amount of space for those people in our listening area who do not know w g ph has a studio in the belmont the us or the boston public library and i think it does an amazing job of bringing in i mentioned this before about community bringing people together in the community my goal for the library you know obviously this is done in concert with the director and and the trustees advice but there's a lot that can be done to bring more into the library if you look at the library as it's configured today i actually think there is space available in the library today that is not well used and part of the reason is that it's not configured well it's just because of what was mentioned about walls that can't be moved and so on so i think that it's a great idea i would be looking for all kinds of opportunities to bring more community together within the library ok are we ready for the next question  component of library programming appears to be the saturday music presentations frequently however those saturday music events only draw few people to the event how would you promote those music events such that they would draw more people great question again something that plays pretty well to my background i've spent quite a bit of time in marketing and actually i do think there's more that the library can do for current programming i think there's wonderful programming available at the library which by the way is utilized more than it has been in the past the numbers that i mentioned earlier indicate that the library is actually a fairly popular place for people to go to attend programs whether they be adult te children some of the things that we would look to the library already has a monthly newsletter i think there's social media that can be utilized there's very little that i can find that the library does with social media but there are a lot of opportunities that are not terribly expensive to get into you have to figure out the framework in which to do that probably have to hire some consultants or some you know maybe even a full time person the friends of the library actually have funds that they've made available for these kinds of things in the past and i think one of the things that i would do is probably just initiate a small project to think about the ways that the library can expand its profile in the community and simply get the word out for things that are already there thank you gail well the specific program joanna that you mentioned the music programs are in fact sponsored and paid for by the friends of the libraries so where the vehicle to provide it but the friends actually do it and i think here you talk about attendance i've been to have some that are quite well attended and some not so is is actually a little bit stronger partnership between library staff and their friends so that what the friends is doing is publicized appropriately on the library we have calls like website said social media as well as click through to the friends website and all that just to make it all more more knowledge the community more what's happening all right thank you kathy i think i think it's a great question and actually in fact it's something that the current trustees took up and in partnership with the friends have been sponsoring a marketing and branding program because their need was recognized that we need to get the word out and so there has been work going on there's been a task force working with outside groups on branding a new logo and then also our marketing campaign for the library we have over the past year redesign the website we are on facebook which we haven't been in the past and so people are finding us through facebook there's always more that you can do but we did recognize it as a need and there's something that is in flight as we speak what is the facebook page called you know i don't know in great that they have one we do we do have if i could just add something you know as a marketing professional one of the things that i think the library needs to try to do more of is go beyond having passive activities like a facebook page or like a web page you need people to find them i think it there's a lot more that the library can do and there's expense issues but with the right budget there's more that can be done to actually outreach to the community and push communication out it's people are busy they need to be disrupted in their normal routines in order to kind of reach them with with information so i think there's there's more thought that can be put into how to do that you agree and that is that is a priority for the current library director  floor i heard from the feasibility committee and the board of trustees for an immediate replacement of the library how you could prevent them from interfering with  a den exclusion be necessary for the high school well in my opening remarks i indicated thank you that's a great question i indicated how how cognisant i am and all of the trustees are of the high school project and the competing capital needs and when we say immediate roger i don't think i don't think anybody thinks immediate means within twelve months right obviously we're maintaining the building all along but the idea is to take the current information and to try to and to try to manage the increasing construction cost by not having it be six or seven years from now and i think in all likelihood absent a major donor deciding that he or she would pay for the whole building the process of fund raising of doing the building committee will that comes before the fund raising of actually getting the pledge is doing the work you would need to do to actually ask the town to approve a debt exclusion i think the goal would be needed to have the high school with not the goal but the the intent would be for that to have the high school approved first and to have the library close behind with a very substantial amount of private fund raising so that the taxpayers and the voters would be willing to assume a much smaller amount of debt than in the past they would but asked to assume ok we go but but in any building project is you know has as many phases to it so we cannot say we have been talking about a new library since nineteen ninety eight i think was the first time  you know only long long time and and so we need to be planning our our job as trustees is to make sure that we are proactive and planning ahead for the future and that means thinking about when what's the lifecycle for a building program what is it what what what how do we make smart investments over the next year or two or three because we have to maintain the building but we very much understand that we should be behind the high school and we don't want to detract from that i think that's the most important vote for for us as a community but we don't want to wait until the high school is built before we begin our campaign for the library that  days so i'm less concerned about the order although i do think that the library will come after the high school i think there's almost no way that we could ask the taxpayers of belmont for any funding for the library prior to the high school but that's what concerns me less what concerns me more is making sure that the taxpayers of belmont are not asked to fund a what they will consider to be an amount that is too big for the library because there are so many other projects all at once in belmont right now and so i think this is going to be at some level a public relations kind of effort on the part of the library i think there's going to be a lot of kind of explaining and educating to the town about why we need a new library and it's just begun i mean the library feasibility committee just finished its work there were people who participated in the process  process but there is a whole lot of work to be done to get people to the point where they get willing to spend any money on a new library so the best thing that we can do is line up as much private money as possible and they've said this right now well and and under gerry boyle and the library i believe is still outside of that consolidated department do you agree with that do you or do you believe that the library should be consolidated with  e schools if if so why if not why no yeah well in fact when when gail and i were elected three years ago the two of us partner and to make sure that the library facilities were consolidated with the rest of the town so it was something that that the two of us really championed to bring to make that happen and we are now consolidated with the town facilities so it was something that i as a town meeting member i remember hearing about that gene why was the library separate there was a real economy of scale a core competency of a library director as not to maintain the buildings and grounds so in fact it was something that gail and i took on and and and pushed through no form for the town and so we have been a part of that we continue to work through that and  and we're very pleased that we were able to accomplish that was the right thing to do so maybe some of the confusion is cappie i think there are certain budget line items that may still be looked like they're in the libraries operating budget and not totally consolidated but we did sign there is the whole agreement that the school department and the facilities department had but we signed our own little memory in the memorandum of understanding agreeing to be part of the facilities consolidation in the town and there was actually some ill will associated with it and we felt very strongly that it was the right fiscal thing to do and the right thing to do and we did do it there are there were some issues that we worked through which is  that as a building that's open sixty eight hours a week and deals with seniors and children and teens and all that we have some needs and so we have a full time custody and etc and that was all part of the memorandum of understanding that we put together so that the librar needs would be appropriately fulfilled within that consolidation framework and that we have a whole process for work orders and all that so we are working through that gerry boyle what the boiler that will be  out of the library budget for for the next fiscal year so again better transparency better countability of spend in that space so it's really been the right thing for the town ok to the next question my voice is now baff this is a question that i i think i asked you already in the newspaper but i'm going to ask it again it's becoming a paperless world why is but i'll give it an oral answer because it's a really important one is the twenty six million isn't necessarily being spent to house more paper i do believe and i said this in the paper that books i think will continue to be a cornerstone of the collection and the resource but libraries have become community spaces and places for residencies and patrons to affordably access just very large reams of information whether it's databases or you know it's not just internet software or whatever and to do it in community spaces to have children adults seniors being able to talk to each other and engage with reference librarians who who we need even more than ever because they're dealing with all of these new resources that people are trying to keep up with and if you know i'd have visited other libraries in  massachusetts and elsewhere and you can just see how the spaces are utilized perhaps more than ever even in a paperless world thank you david yes so  libraries are about books per se libraries are about learning and housing information and increasingly about sharing and creating and they are actually more than anything a community hub so there are all kinds of ways that's going to happen going forward that actually don't happen today and you can see i've been in libraries i was in the philadelphia main branch a couple weeks back and they've they've transformed a couple of whole rooms on the first floor of their wives or into business spaces so full of places where people can come in and meet there are no restrictions there's no you know we think of libraries as a quiet place and i'm not saying people are shouting in these spaces but there's no need for speaking as much in hushed tones so i think that you know libraries will increasingly be places where people not just come to a meeting room for a large gathering but they will meet with each other the death of the reference librarian is greatly exaggerated it's going to be than ever to find information in this information age and people need help navigating through that so while there may be fewer books on the shelves i think that's actually probably a fairly safe prediction peter is already removed our current directors already removed the shelves of books from from our current library and opened up space in some ways that i've just described we're kind of inching towards that but i think that even without all of those books there is still a huge role for libraries to play and thirty eight thousand square feet gets used up pretty fast in a community hub thank you kathy so there will always be books right and i think just as as these folks have said libraries are community gathering place and talking with the director last week i said well what are you seeing in trends for library buildings as they're going through the current round she said community space dedicated space for teens and fo children quiet places where you can you know have access to the internet more places where you can get together from the makers face so i think really libraries used to be where you would go to get information all day myself i used to go and look up the world book encyclopedia whatever the alphabetical volume was now it's a place where you go to learn how to use information how to access information how to analyze it how to determine what's the right information so i think more they're just being used differently i think they will always always be a need for libraries as we've seen in the usage for our own library ok thank  your comment about housing information and both of you talked about has information and it makes me think that when the town of belmont built the new senior center there was at one time a proposal combine it with a library and we now do away from that and when there was a proposal to move the library building across the street there was talk about combining the library with the school programming more and then we didn't move the library across the street could you address what your thinking is about how the library could work to combine its pro or offer its programming to the schools in a more coordinated fashion in to offer its programming to the council on aging in a more coordinated fashion sure happy to so one of the things that  i know happens already pretty well is our teen librarian works very closely with the high school and has a fairly extensive e mail list that she uses in order to push out programming and is very good about inviting in programming and i know that a lot of the high school students are very fond actually of working in the library so there's a fairly strong connection already i'm sure it can be made better between the current library and our high school the elementary schools and the middle school there's a great young adult section at our library my kids who are sixth and eighth graders at general use it all the time and they're very aware of things that are going on at the library so there's already good communication back to those schools as well in terms of actual kind of sinking up what the schools need with the available kind of space at the library part of the problem is frankly just space space for programming space for doing things  the library is limited in terms of its funding to be able to to support things that the schools are looking for the foundation for belmont education sometimes steps in and helps with a library school program that may take place in the library or at the schools a s far as the council on aging i think that the prior proposal to combine more of what happens at the beach street center with a library was appropriate in hindsight as we think about how we combine town services you know maybe it was ahead of its  time but i think a lot of it because again back to space and making sure that the library feels like a place that can be utilized by the patrons of the beach street center and frankly legislation that doesn't mean time so well i'm ready to candidates well i actually think that the librarians and peter do a very nice job of coordinating with the schools and the particular project that the schools are doing at particular times and supporting them in doing that and and my recollection i've been here a very long time is that there are less and less library services in the schools and so the teachers and the principals and the parents are looking to lo belmont public library staff to serve a lot of that role for their children and we do in terms of the council on aging peter did institute a books on wheels or homebound delivery i can't remember exactly what he's calling it for for residents that can't come to the library co locating i think unfortunately that's that was an idea that hasn't worked and as much as we'd all would have liked for it to work we're just land starved in this town and you know we're getting i leased i have gotten to that to the place where we'll need to do our work on the concrete avenues site and then reach out with peter on the staff and volunteers to to integrate into the programming with the schools program so i agree and i think i think there have been a lot of changes and increases  partnerships with the library staff in the schools in the senior center particular in the last few years i think there always was a partnership but i think it's been a real focus of peter and the staff as of late so we you know we have the home phone book delivery program there's actually a book club that the librarian goes to the senior center and runs that book club right there we have picked up i think the slack from you know there are no librarians and the elementary schools anymore and so the library staff is is filling in the gap and used to be that there was you know history day and the kids would walk from ten or down to the library now the librarians go to ten or there's very close partnership about what the projects are that the kids are doing in the schools and will look at what databases what sources information sources do they need and make sure that they're available so i think there is there's always going to can always take something and enhance it but we have had very good partnership in terms of the programs that means and good collaboration between schools and in the senior center thank you you can be ok i am up for the next question since we were talking about combining services brought the idea to mind about since the library so close to the high school and there's a high school building committee now in the process of doing a fist abilities study for a new high school and you've probably heard this idea before but you think there might be a way the that's a good question then and my recollection is the trustees actually got a letter from a taxpayer about that very bozo there's no proposal that that i am the trustees don't consider right there's no bad idea but i do think that at this point in time that proposal while at first blush very attractive probably couldn't be implemented in time to get a high school dead exclusion on the ballot and get it all built because there are the high school you as you know is provisionally awarded an m s p a grand the school building authority grant specific requirements for that  specific requirements have been met and will continue to be met in order to receive that grant and ask the taxpayers for the balance of the money once the building is designed to add a library would really put a kink in that process and perhaps i don't know because i haven't read those particular regulations but perhaps challenge the award and we of course would not want to do that so i think that probably would have been needed needed a lot of advance planning in order for something like that to likely work the other thing is that there are and again part of the advanced planning there are access and security concerns that are not insubstantial with co locating a library and a high school because the librarian takes all comers and the high school has has does not take all comers and so you need to be very careful about who has access to what building and you have to design for that and i think the  every work didn't take that into consideration so while a good idea i think not an executable idea at this point in time perfect timing for david so i'm going to maybe keep this a little simpler i mean aside from the process issues and even if it could be done from a design standpoint from a timing standpoint i'm not so sure it's a good idea to put a library on the same physical site as the high school and it really to me does come down to the security and access issues i'll be you know a little blunt i mean in terms of accepting all comers really does accept all comers it is a public space that turns no one away except there become incidents and then we have to actually trespass people so that aside we would be if the high school and the library were colocated and we were not handling those well and i'm not actually sure there is a feasible way to handle them you would have convicted sex offenders on school property and i'm not sure that once that people start thinking about that that that particular plan would end up with much support in yeah well i think you know as residents of the town we've all question we were talking earlier about the beach street center why don't we have you know single use projects why isn't there consideration for you know kind of smart investment and planning so that you have you could build something that would meet multiple needs in the community when when we started looking at the feasibility or considering a feasibility study peter and i did meet with the superintendent to talk about what could be the options what what were the possibilities what was he open to it where we open to it and i think much as the conversation has gone on to here  found that although it sounds like a good idea we really have very different needs the construction game granted would be very you can even build a share you can have a shared wall based on  you know the rules and regulations for those two programs so while while seemingly a good idea on a practical level it really didn't prove to be but we did we continue to be in touch we've been in touch with the building committee for the squalls and look for the possibilities for to our last question where other times and places where we can have a partnership from a programming and resourcing therefore we don't need the database and two and the schools in the libraries let's buy access to that one and then have make it available to all thank you kathy i think we have time for one more unfunded open obligations and one of the things that drives those geishas is the contribution that part time employees make to the town obligations historically the library has had a lot of part time employees and has been to control those part time employees or the number part time have a tremendous number of part time people and staff at the library but only one that receives benefits and when i started in my term we actually had three people that work part time with benefits and now we have only one part time person who takes benefits so we've been able to look at restructuring jobs when when a part time person has retired or somebody with benefits to make sure that we are trying to have the right but also not incurring that expense so i think we are down to one and i think it's we we run the library with about fifty people on the majority of which are part time but without  i don't really have much to add mary and we we wanted to kind of comply with the directive right that none of us being necessarily experts in the unfunded pension area but we want to apply  by the directive which we have and keep in mind that the library is open more hours probably than any other place in town and has a lot of hourly employees running through manning the circular circulation desk cetera and so the idea was to not having not have too many of those employees taking benefits and nor doing them out of benefits i'm not really out right but to actually following the directive and  david so there's really two things that i would look at in your question the first is the need to be kind of regularly looking at staffing staffing ratios just how the work is being done in the current library and what's needed in a modern library however that  defined the second part is the connection back to the town and the fact that the library is not an island in the town as far as the first piece goes i spend a fair amount of my time in the world that i live in in business i'm currently out athenahealth i have had to spend you know of annually time thinking through these questions and restructuring team is not to restructure you don't build an organization because you want to look a certain way you build it based on the needs that you have and the organization follows the type of people you hire and the staffing the expense those skills they have all follow so i think that's a that's a thing that the library will be spending a lot of time thinking about going forward as we have this more digital kind of age upon us the second thing is back to the town  library is more integrated with the town than it has been but i think there's still more to be done there the library has waited a long time to have the boiler installed that was purchased by the currently consolidated operation and so i think there's there's a a need to make sure that the library does not get lost in the show awful so to speak of other town priorities and as a trustee i think that is an area that i would be particularly focused on thank y yet so we have five minutes so we're just going to i just want to just ask you real quick how you feel what how you think that's going to affect the library but you know how i have to get into it i think it's going to be i'll say i think it's absolutely fantastic that we have a bookstore coming back to don't belmont much needed i don't think that it will be designed the way some people probably think it's going to be designed i think it's going to be very inviting space that isn't going to look for people to buy a book and leave i'll just leave it at that and i think as far as its connection back to the library i'm hoping that there will be very specific things that are done purposely to connect back to the library because i'm thrilled i write this reading international and every successor to it and yes it will have been had been inviting space but at the end of the day you can't remove a book without buying it and the library is a democratic institution that's free and so they should coexist beautifully and just encourage learning and reading throughout th minute each so well again thank you to the media center in so much citizen harold joanna i would like to close by saying that the next one to two years will be absolutely crucial in order to build a new library i think the town needs and deserves a new building it's been mentioned that it was one nine hundred ninety eight that we first began looking at this possibility that is almost twenty years ago we're going to make big decisions about the high school the d p w yard police station if we want to gain approval for a new library it's got to take strong and energetic leadership now tons of discussion needs to take place with other committees in town with the selectmen and there's going to be the need for a building committee in order to and design together that can help to raise money we're going to need private money and this is going to take a lot of hard work i am skilled at fundraising at sales at gaining consensus and would be working across the town to do this i'm looking forward to helping the town in this way serving your taxpayers and ask for your vote as a trustee so sorry i don't even know the time i was doing that t library since i joined the board in two thousand and fourteen but i want everybody to understand that what we provide to this community is going to be provided to this community with hopefully my stewardship and the stewardship of the trustees in whatever passivity we're living in whether it's at the current building a modular space or a new building and that our priority as trustees and what our duties are actually require us to make sure that those community programs and services continue to be provided  as they've been provided and we will continue to do that of course i'm going to focus on how best to ensure the belmont will have a facility in the decade coming decades that's able to offer residents a safe and accessible and welcoming space to access technology and information participate in programs and be a part of a town that loves learning and community and values it forever i ask for your support and vote on april fourth because i'm committed to belmont thirty eight years and counting i've demonstrated success in my professional legal career i'm pragmatic i'm collaborative very hard working i'm someone who pays attention to detail and i'm very passionate about libraries and i promise to be a responsible advocate for the of that i will continue to use my passion skills and experience to support and improve the belmont public library thank you when i had said a candidate and i'll say here i think the three things that you can count on me if i'm to be reelected are continued focus on programs and services transparency and partnership and facts and balance we have we have accomplished a lot and the last three years i think if you ask folks about what's changed with the librarian the trusting they will say that they're thrown to with the new  leadership with with the new field the transparency of the openness and with the collaboration that we have achieved i ask for your vote to continue that and the next for the next three years and i think that we've we've proven that we can do more and by working together we've had a terrific run with the trustees and it will require discipline hard work i have a background i was a special ed teacher where when the reading specialist and my job and my day job i focused on building program services and restructuring things and we've brought our brought those skills to the library so i look for your vote on april fourth thank you thank you kathy gill and