three of the resumes that we have two terrific candidates or thank you very much for expressing interest in this position which i think i'll leave it up to the trustees to really start this process so this is really your team and you know the and then there was a street in belmont we used to walk our daughter down old middlesex road in her stroller this was before the strollers even had wheels that turned you know these are the just like umbrellas with wheels and we would say this is like the perfect neighborhood to have a family in and a little library on the corner quiet didn't go anywhere one day there was a for sale sign on the front lawn and we decided we've not looked at a single house we didn't know anything about buying a house we've never owned a house we said that would be a great spot and the next day we went by and there was a broken window in the house and apparently the people had been relocated and you know the story anyway after some negotiation with the relocation company we were happy homeowners in belmont and i shot pictures of our first house and sent them to my sister in new jersey and she wrote back great starter house we're still in our starter house i have a feeling it's going to be our end will be carrying us out but raising our family there it's been great during the time that we had young children i was working full time as was my husband and i didn't have a ton of time for community involvement friends or anything pretty much but family and work although i have to say ralph just didn't for the wellington p t a so he was held up the flag but i doubt that when that family was sort of launched that that would be my time to give something back to a community that i had lived in benefit from for a long time so i've been a town meeting member and founding member of the belmont library foundation and that really be had my deep immersion with the library and understanding its challenges and its strengths and the goals and mission of the organization all of that was very interesting to me because what i do professionally is work with organizations i'm a management consultant for shills is a twenty four year old firm we work with a ray of organizations across sectors and what that means is that we work on the people side of the house to help organize asians to develop their strategy and implement their strategy successfully and that is through their people and so it was my pleasure to work with maureen on some staff development for the library team  and also to work with the library foundation to help move the libraries agenda forward and that's pretty much what i can tell you specifically i worked on a series of meetings for the community that helped  vision for belmont's library for the future told us a lot about what people in town were saying they wanted from their library this is a good long time ago that probably twelve or fourteen years ago and worked until two years ago when it became clear that a new library was not going to happen imminently so took a breather still temp meeting member but still really gauged in interested in what happens in the future of this institution and how this special place that serves everybody in belmont one of the few institutions we can say really does that for free how that functions and how it serves the community and its its people  i think what i can do is probably not all that different in some ways from what any other dedicated volunteer does which is try to execute the strategy of the enterprise that you're working with and try to take the needs into the community of the community into account and blend those two things and advocate for that institution  couple different roles at harvard university and you know involved from a windbreak p t a cambridge school volunteers again somebody that with a consulting background as well so qualified candidate i think our sense was that we knew we were eager to move forward this has been a vacancy to be had for some time you know given that we're at the you know on the cusp of summer vacation even to move forward and i would just you know both of you touched on it a little bit but in your in your introductions and discussion if you could speak to what you see as some of the key opportunities and challenges for the library  and the boiler is an issue along with the capital plan and so deciding what what to do now that needs to be done and without trying to spend money twice because you understanding i would certainly support that and say just to take even a step further belmont has a lot of sub populations within the town of belmont and i think that not all of them are equally evident to every citizen in the community but the library is a place that is a free public library for every member of our community and that really means the need for a diversity of programs what their cross language programs age programs there are lots of citizens in belmont who represent different sets of needs and i think  library is uniquely situated in from unity to serve as that nexus and so you know i'm really i'm proud of belmont and excited for the community and how it's changed over the thirty eight years that we've been on a little section to see for example the farmer's market and what that says to me about our community is how eager there is the thirst fo common space where people can feel the sense of community where they don't have to buy something to do that and where they can take advantage of anything from shopping for onions t story hour to musical event learning about recipes for another culture it all it's all there unfortunately since we don't in santa barbara it's only there in the summer and i think the other  ten months of the year or so in many ways the library can be that nexus and already is but i think can be that even more with the right resources and programming that's what we heard even twelve years ago is that the trend nationally and even internationally is for libraries to become what they called in northern europe the living room of the community and i think that's an interesting concept and very much speaks to probably the heart of what brings many many people to a library it's a place where you can be and be with other people even if you're not necessarily in gauging with them and i think at a time where people work remotely they're home more at a time where parents may not always be available it's a safe and welcoming place where you can get educated and be welcomed and i think that's what a community is about so to me it's sort of both real and symbolic and i think programs and resources that support that symbol are really the libraries future and so how we integrate the whole digital revolution into what that means is the challenge for libraries around the world sadly or depending on who you're advocating for fabulously there is no shortage of needs for libraries and so even if we don't need to have as many hard copies of particular kinds of literature there are plenty of other needs  and just accessing literature and other resources is certainly a major transitional stage as the digital immigrants among us work to take advantage of all think what i would like to see is a clear connection between community desires and dreams for the library and as much as possible for the library to begin to integrate and execute the pieces that it isn't currently already engaged in providing i think the question of marketing the library communicating about the library those issues around and under communication i'd love to see people feel well informed well in touch aware of and connected to this institution as intimately as they can be and as you explain it i totally understand it it's so life stage specific what people use a library for really does change as their personal circumstances change so one of the nice things about the revolution in library services is that we can be much more of a of a buffet and less of a one size fits all if a library doesn't have everything sitting on a shelf it can have more and that means that the books for preschoolers can be easily accessed and the books for people in their forty's can be easily accessed and the books for people in their ninety's can be easily accessed some may need to be larger print but that's ok we can do that now so this is a sort of a personal library for every individual in the sense of meeting their range of needs is where i think libraries probably need to go and i would hope that as that trend continues the bellman in ten years will look back and say hey our library is more like that and our usage continues to be really strong and that when we ask people why you come to belmont when they say schools they also say library and schools i agree that i would like to see people be more informed about what's going on there and more of the community space and i think also i would want to look back and over this next ten years see the libraries physical space continues to director have been working to really expand the programs in the services i've seen a lot of movement even within the current space shells and chairs and things to make it brighter and more open and more welcoming and more of a place where people can sit and talk so i would like to see more of that it being seen as a community place so that people do come there not just to take books and leave but to socialize  the seating arrangements and adding the toys and they've added actually even some toys for children that are very expensive that some people would not normally be able to buy or that they can just check out with in the library play with so i'd like i just would also like to see the children  more i just want to add that i think space not just quantity of space but quality of space really matters and i'm a big believer that function often follows form and that providing attractive appealing space good light comfortable seating sufficient room to spread out and do your work small meeting rooms these were the kinds of things that when we asked belmont residents what do you want they were saying things just like you were saying like what i'm saying and what i think all of you could probably pop out with if we asked you for a wish list we took one of the parts of the library foundation program was to educate citizens about what they might not know we're all in that position if you only use the belmont library you might not know what other libraries are doing so we took a bus tours to different libraries in the area and it was people were very surprised and pleased they went to lexington they went to watertown they went to wellesley and they looked at some of the other buildings just to see what people you know what the library was like when you went to the library lexington and they came back pretty j because not that they had time to use the program there but when you walked in the door it felt great to be there i think peter just to give him kudos and the current board has done a great job with what we have but there are limits to what can be done with that and it is an old building and it's a somewhat dingy building the lighting really is bad and those are mood setters that you know you can you can only do so much with that so i think making it an appealing place a place that draws people in doesn't just a comedy is what i would love to see in ten years chairman i was wondering since this recession is being broadcast if perhaps we could remind the audience of how the board of trustees is elected its there are six members two of you are elected every year this position correct me if i'm wrong is is up for reelection next year is that correct he would be up for election in april is if something like this happens is if it even though you're an independent organization and you stand on your own two feet you do your deal when something like this happens it comes to the board of selectmen to make an appointment until the the past dozen plus years with the library so some historical context of what has gone before and why things are where they are now and how that informs what we can do in the future would be something i think that could use i would say my educational professional background not so dissimilar my doctoral work is in organizational behavior and management from harvard and my  experience is both as a general manager and interim manager as an associate dean executive director in various universities i think i know from my management consulting time how to identify key levers to make change happen and how to execute on those strategies and the passion just a real interest in advancing this institution my favorite is this the scene where the helicopter hits the house the airplane hits the house and garden his wife had been looking at buying this house and she's like a gas because the plane is just flown in and destroyed this house and he says but honey what's likelihood of a second plane ever hit you the same place in the future and it was such a great sort of reframing and i think refrain is often required in our life so every day i  i've been reading about artificial intelligence in virtual reality as educational opportunities and the article i read said that currently you start with an a and you work your way down rez in artificial intelligence and virtual reality you started zero and work your way out do you all have a viewpoint on th intelligence and and virtual reality you know you start at zero and then as you get more experience and you you do more work your abilities increase and i think a more common example would be playing games as an example which people are using this approach in education where you started zero and you play the game and you play the game one hundred hours all the sudden you're an expert and so i'm  research and get information and i just the article i read said you know this is kind of the leading edge of education i can you know send it to you and give you more yeah i think the idea is a little it probably similar to anybody who's been on the computer and you click on a link and it ties to someplace you didn't necessarily know even existed and then you follow that link and your knowledge gro and it's this sort of exponential learning but without a clear pathway set up in front of you and what's lovely about that is we now know more than ever about the fact that everyone learns in his or her own way a curriculum the a plus model you know a b c d name not necessarily fit the learning style of every individual so be able again this is part of that customisation an individual  that we're talking about the technology enables people to do means that different learning styles can come into an institution and use that institutions resources in creative and if using credit ways and things are set up so that people can follow their noses whatever they are know to suggest next and that's a very different than one size fits all model you know the dewey decimal system says go to this  shelf for things under this subject matter but we all know that there are lot of fuzzy edges in terms of content and some things could go someplace else if you thought about it from a different angle and a lot of us do thin so i think that's one of the opportunities that that concept poses it's held to respond to different learning styles and again it's sort of what we've been talking about in some ways in town meeting around buildings for a long time why don't we think multi purpose we can't afford to be narrow we can't afford it temporarily because needs change rapidly over time we can't afford it individually because individuals have different needs so be the kind of flexibility that the technology now affords is fantastic and what we are going to need is a facility that can enable and facilitate the use of those advances to allow people to really leverage what we have for them  and services and then future programs and services and i think it sort of also dovetails with as with the the building project as we sort of embark on what's this tented iteration of feasibility study and consideration of a new building which i fully support there's been a debate in town and sure you both of you print perhaps have heard it when we have the other library you know ready to move forward you know in terms of the size of the library is just the library the future and some folks felt that all we really need is a check out counter well i disagree with that but that's that's how some people view the light what's the library the future you look at cambridge public library will have and they have more money than anyone so they can build that sort of monstrosity that  could look like a lot of things and we are at a point where the strategy for the library and what it's trying to achieve in the community is pivotal because the space should follow what we're trying to achieve and i believe that what we're trying to do is provide a place where members of the community can come and avail themselves of resources that they might not individually be able to afford that they might not even know they could use and that will help support them in becoming educated effective citizens of the world and that's a pretty broad mandate but what we know it means is that just to back what my colleague here is saying education is going to be at the heart of this because the technology is not frozen where you learn it today and then you use it forever it's not like getting a library card and you keep using it it's going to be a question of playing keep up catch up and really being able to exploit this fairly expensive but extensive opportunity and so when i think about what this situation needs to look like i agree with you mark it absolutely is not just a checkout counter in fact it's more important than ever to be able to turn to your neighbor and say do you know how to do this when how many of us have worked at home and hit that wall technically where it's i don't know how to fix this i don't know how to do this i don't even know if this exists and you start with the help line and we all know what that's like that we can do from home but to be able to be in a place where you can turn to somebody else and say what do you think about this have you ever tried this to be able to go to an expert and say i'm sure you've set up this problem before this is what i basing and have that person help you take the leap that's what this place is going to be about and i think it will happen in a strategic way i think it will happen in formal way i've been in the library many times where i went to just return a book and do i ever get out of there with just richard you know you know i mean i talk to people i learn something from someone i see something interesting that sparks my curiosity i see a book on a shelf that grabs me and all of a sudden i have another reason i'm at the library and i think that sort of connectedness that viral illness is what is going to make this place a hub what we know as marketers is that you don't just attract somebody once the growth is in your customers return and you want to get those people and then keep those people and part of keeping them is showing people new fresh ways to use this resource all the time otherwise they come in for a book they pick up the book and they go but that's not how you build a constituency that's not how you build a community you want regulars this is a place where everybody could know your name and people told us they want a place to get you used to be the library you couldn't even bring in food remember those days where the library would come in you know that that's gone people want to get a cup of coffee in their library every neighborhood library we visited had a cafe not not fancy but it was a place you could get up a coffee you know i mean and that tells you something when you look at the the borders of this world where the barnes and noble's of this world they understood something about how people utilize book resources and they recognize that it wasn't bad to let people thought through the magazine that in fact it drew people into the store and while they were there yeah maybe they spilled something on the magazine but guess what they bought three expensive books they those are magnets and those are reasons try to go to burlington and find a seat at barnes and nobles on saturday it's a lot like trying to go to our library and find a seat on saturday we just need to respond to that which the commercial world has already caught on to and they're still playing catch up you know again what does it mean to be a bookstore in the age of amazon the world is different what does it mean to be a library what i could tell you today in ten years would be obsolete but we need to follow that trail and to do that we need certain know bigger cubicles offices figure out and they switched to an open format on in order to increase collaboration and keep people from getting in there and their offices and i think that libraries are moving in that direction and should be providing more community space places where people can gather also and in a way so i think the funny part is we think of the library as kind of a quiet place but i think it's going to become more noisy frankly and it would be a good thing and have some spaces within the library that actually serve multiple age groups pacifically i think that's a very good for the residents and i think it's kind of a similar at the library where in time it's nice to have the separate areas obviously so that the children are a little louder in the quiet said space but i think they'll become more of a  vibrant community space for that will come and hopefully more and more people i think will come in so that it is certainly people come more individuals will come more but i think have a wider variety i think the library but you know i was just going to talk about information literacy skills the high school and the middle school don't have the bandwidth to to do that kind of teaching and that's really in my mind from your librarian myself the role of the librarian to facilitate the use of all these new technologies because that's a man who better than us who use it who fired that it for it's  fit into our community i do it at the medical level with clinicians and researchers and i think that one of the things we've done in the past it hasn't been called information literacy skills training but we get to high schoolers in the middle schoolers working on their history day projects where there are these cities and you know and those are very in depth research projects and one of our issues is finding you know which i think actually that is very important and it's another way to the to you know we can try to bring people into the library but it's also good in the library kind of reaches out to the community and so actually that i was like a very good idea to have for it if it's possible of course getting staffing and things like that to have the library go into other areas of the community the high school the field you know the schools themselves probably the the street center the another good  place areas like that where the library can kind of reach out into the community and help especially with information literacy and i think in turn that will also probably bring people back into the libraries that will kind of come full circle i think that's a good example and i know that on university campuses for example just to give you an analogy we the trend was to take us psychological support services mental health services out of the counseling center and into the community so that the counselors were not just people you went to in this separate building if you found your way there but they were people who were in your residence halls around your community so they were integrated in moving in that hurdle of getting in was less and people were more aware of them they were comfortable with them and the clinicians were more able to understand the needs of the population that would eventually serve one on i think it's really the only point i haven't had a chance to make that i'd like to say is that the success of integrating the new needs the new technology all that stuff with how we provide it is the challenge and i'd like to point to building design is one area that i think is really important we have lots of challenges in belmont around space we're built out it's you know we're trading off one thing against another it's right there are not lots of  as people have more flexible schedules they want the library to be available to them more flexibly if you think about more hours what that really means is you know just open the door here to staff it so how do you build staff in the lean way this is one of the issues that needs to be considered because you can build up on the current site for example to add another floor but when you floors you add staff because for security and other reasons if you open the doors you have to have sight line people who can monitor and so you need to be thoughtful about what the cost will be in the long run to run a building when you want to run the program  office so it's going to be thinking out of the box in some way it's literally about how we can do this efficiently we know that town budgets are going to explode and they're going to give a big pot of money to keep question he wanted to ask thanks mr chairman i wanted to know from a practical standpoint if you're selected the sporting what your intentions are in the spring or is there something coming up on your schedule that might prevent you from running out for the remaining term my book isn't quite that far in advance no there isn't anything that would prevent me from doing it i think what's lovely this opportunity is is i am at the point in my life and career where i do things where i can have an impact and i think that's part of recognising that my time here is finite and i want to do things that i could where i can make a contribution and so it's a wonderful friends well thank you very much for having them for considering my application i am very excited about the opportunity to actually help the library guide and supported over the next one to that can kind of add that piece but at the same time i feel that my background in economics business marketing consulting would provide some analytical background ability of working across a wide group of people i know that i've met all of you and that looked like the opportunity to work with you i think it's just an exciting time for the library and it just happens i know that it's been a while you know that certain things certain things have needed to be done for a while but at the same time the fact that the library does need some either renovation or addition or rebuilding at this time of change in our world from books to digital media in some sense it provides a really great opportunity so it's kind of an exciting  and so i'd really like to be able to help with that  i would say that having taken two years off from the b l f i feel like that was a good chance to get some perspective on things and step back and get a you know sort of breath of fresh air i really excited about with the library at its current constitution because a lot of ways in addition to the building the library is the people who oriented and so the board has a great combination of new and continuing people peter's new leadership i think there are lots of reasons that it's exciting and i can honestly say that my excitement for this is and i would welcome the chance to make a tribute with this thank you well clearly a difficult choice let me point to probably not ours anyway thank you very much for your interest in this position again both terrific candidates we're going to take a boat at this point and make a decision so i'll turn it to the trustees first to begin discussion if i may say yes of course one thing you know my my only  little bit of of hesitancy to this process is rebecca lewis not being able to be here you know that that's unfortunate i do understand the need to want to point someone before people start going on vacations for the summer but at least in my mind rebecca not being here is not in any way affecting my decision with respect to her having you know i've never met her but i but she certainly has a very impressive resume and i would suggest that even after this process someone you know maybe you kathy as chair reach out to her and  either let her know that she's been appointed or welcome her and some so what with some of the library initiatives the other thing i'd say is for all three candidates we do have committee appointments coming up and so you know if if you don't get this opportunity i would encourage you to look at our list of committees and and apply we like to keep keep people involved in this town so ok so let me just sort of set the table think we've done this before with the school commission it's not a reflection on the candidates it's just who you think at this point in time could have the most direct impact on you know your your but your body as lab or trustees and whomever is not appointed you know certainly there's an opportunity to spring to to run for that seat so i mean you need to think in your heart who is the best candidate and just move forward i mean it's i don't think either candidate today will be insulted by whatever the suit is made so we've done this before which school  think what you want when i look out when you look at the current prestes is there's nobody that represents a constituent of a young family and i think i think that critical for us to make sure that am always impressed by the people who want to get involved you know and in belmont but you know i feel that corrine will add something new to the library trustees you know being a young parent with young children and and and healthfully hopefully as as we look to a better facility in the future you know i agree i think we need to look at the needs of the young children and expanding the space and you know maybe rearranging some of its some of its usage so so that is why i am supporting current at this time i have to say i was attracted to marci's experience especially because she understood my question but marcy i really appreciated your comments i'm going to vote for parin for the same reasons that  others have mentioned and that is it's a different perspective new person on the block you're a town meeting member kareem ran for town meeting and lost by how many votes  really so you next year you're going to do the pamphlets that i advise you to do yet i'm going to keep it so anyway congratulations and congratulations to you both the library is really important i view it as a sanctuary i go there when i can and you're right about barnes and noble you can get a seat there right i just thinking more things to say i thought i'd really want to thank the selectmen for taking the time yeah this is exactly and also the discussion between the candidates here i think exposed some of the issues that the library trustees have which maybe we haven't had the time just with you guys to hear yeah i know that's very useful mark that's that's absolutely true so just in the business of the day congratulations careen on your appointment and more  so again let me just thank you david so in terms of the term this is a term that will be for the remainder pain until from this day forward in this way forward until april of next year so that's what the motion needs to read correct so you have a motion to appoint me just read the full name is executive session a bit up but basically we have gone out and solicited a price solicited price proposals for r f y seventeen property and liability insurance coverage we received two proposals one from for the town for our property casualty basically my has provided us with lower premiums higher limits of coverage and less or equal deductibles and additional coverage programs with regard to training which is one of the vantages of going of my office and receiving credits for retraining participation as part of their program employee assistance programs and the like we also included their financial statements is annual and basically what we do is we review the coverage every year my eyes as well as a one year contract or and it's not a contract it's binding insurance so it's basically we can do this process every year particularly you don't you the reason why maya was formed originally was to provide some stability in the insurance marketplace for municipalities the maya board is made up of town managers and select board members they're the ones that  really provide some guidance on if there's going to be changes to the insurance program and maya considers itself an insurance company as well as a risk management partner we have a very strong risk management  questions so you you don't actually provide the coverage you negotiate with insurance companies you're like the agent i'm the agent maya is the insurance it's a self insured group so my it stands for the massachusetts insurance so you are the insurer of my yes correct and boy what's the limit of your coverage there is no limit whatever you emerging million dollar claim for example you'd be able to write so maya's a pool in my approach my of purchases reinsurance coverage so they might be on the first two hundred fifty thousand dollars of a l and then they purchased reinsurance for catastrophic loss and that was my question so you do work with other insurance yes tom but you don't see that it's it's transparent to you you as the as the you're a nonprofit yes ok so you're able to pass some of the savings on to the municipalities yes that that that right through you because you're nonprofit right so my old school has been if there has been surplus available in the past they provided that surplus back to to its membership and in the way of participation credits ok and  some of which sammy's questions answered i'm curious about the process david does this a bidding process or how how does this how does it work i'm just curious i'm literally just curious  what we did is we solicited price proposals from our existing vendor and from my own basically listed all the current cartridges we have and what the limits are and they somehow you solicited beds and basically review them based upon what we asked for in terms of coverages and the the doctor bills and the liability limits and compare them we told them what we wanted and we receive the proposals back and you're not required to you're not required to pick the lowest bid in this case and this is a different kind of i mean i understand this is the lowest bid but are you required to find that and that's when we had a list of criteria that that each vendor had to submit qualifications in order to bid and so basically in terms of service in terms of ability to provide the coverages and the like so you're free to look at both goods and decide which was the best and in this particular branch and as i mentioned we're not required extensively with the insurance carriers and has a good expertise in terms of the marketplace in terms of the coverages so phyllis was the point on this because of her prior experience clearly  a committee that we do have has had several vacancies and frankly was more in tune when we were self insured as opposed to where we are now for the past several years in terms of having a policy  between our team basically fills myself we developed the request for quotations and understand the marketplace we can't we evaluated the results and recommending that we bind my to do through this exercise i saw some some things that i i think that the town would look at if it didn't and at least look at what what my role is to basically guide the town on what their coverage is to handle any service issues that come up and to look at what their current policy is with my eyes to see if there's any coverage gaps there that need to be filled in within the my own program or outside of my there are certain coverages that do not fall within a commercial insurance policy for example of pollution liability policy might not fall within your commercial insurance policy policy need a separate standalone policy for th regular meeting april sixth two thousand and sixteen regular meeting april eleventh two thousand and sixteen regular meeting april twenty five two thousand and sixteen executive session april twenty five two thousand sixteen regular session april twenty seventh two thousand and sixteen that was our joint meeting with the warren committee may second two thousand and sixteen pre annual town meeting meeting of the board of selectmen and busy with a number of projects me and being one of the other other matters where they can be helpful if david we found some days during the summer months july or august to have meetings in which we means or in the summer months when the business isn't as busy as it normally would be can really lead to a more productive for us i think it's something we should do ok so with that  we need to go into executive session to conduct strategy sessions or preparation for negotiation with the new person now or to conduct collective bargaining sessions or contributions with nonunion personnel so do i have motion to go into your position stated purpose so