BUDGET
Yes: 231
No: 35
ELECTION
1) Patricia McCormick 169
2) Michael Garabedian 165
3) Bob Weinstein 133
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Daniel Glass 125
Elliott Sroka 78
Charles Stevenson 41
WRITE-INS
William Horan 1
Mary Ann Miller 1
Jessica Soffer 1
Stella Stands 1
My thanks to the community for their overwhelming support of the work we do, to the candidates for their belief in the future of public libraries, and to my board and colleagues—they make this library sing. I am honored to work with you all.
Here’s to 2020,
Cathy
Bravo!!!
I think enough time has passed that we should put the library voting back to the same time and place as the school board/budget vote. When we vote in a general election, we are voting for many more candidates and propositions so we should be able to handle voting for the school and library at the same time.
This would allow greater voter participation, which is always something to strive for, and by having one vote instead of two, it would save a great deal of money which could be used to buy more books!
Hello Carol,
Thank you so much for reaching out. Like you, I am always looking for ways to buy more books! We have looked at the possibility of holding our vote in conjunction with the annual school vote. As you say, there would be benefits, but there are also some logistical difficulties including the fact that JJML is actually independent of the schools, and treated as a separate district by the New York State Comptrollers, and our fiscal-year runs from January through December, as opposed to the school’s which runs from July through June, making it difficult to hold our votes at the same time.
My point is that the library vote was always at the same time as school vote. Changes can and should be made to make this happen again. It would definitely increase the number of voters and definitely save money.
As far as the library’s being a separate district, we vote for federal, state, county and local officials on the same ballot.
Hi Carol,
I have done some additional research on this issue. The change to a stand-alone vote began in 2001, before my tenure here. Can we set up a time to review what the board’s thinking was at the time, and why the vote as it is still makes sense for both JJML and the school.