NORTHAMPTON — Mayor David J. Narkewicz’s attempt to reach a formal agreement with Forbes Library over financing and budgetary matters is not the first time local officials have done so with a library willed to the people.
In 1984, the Amherst Select Board signed a memorandum of understanding with Jones Library trustees clarifying questions about the legal and financial relationships between the library and town.
The pact came at a time when Amherst was providing more financial aid to the library, which was established in 1919 by a fund set up in the will of lumberman Samuel Minot Jones. Like Forbes Library, Jones Library is governed by a board of trustees.
The agreement signed by trustees and Select Board members more than 30 years ago states that while trustees have the authority and responsibility to administer the Jones Library, they were subject to the kinds of budgeting and capital requests practices that other town departments followed, including seeking appropriations through Town Meeting.
It also defined the role of the town manager when it came to the library’s financial affairs, including presenting its budget to Town Meeting.
“It didn’t really change anything,” recalled Cheryl B. Wilson, then president of the Jones Library trustees. “It confirmed that the Jones Library is the town library and the town approves money for employees and books and everything else and that the town manager has a role in recommending to Town Meeting and the Finance Committee whether these are legitimate expenses. That seemed to satisfy them.”
Barry Del Castilho, then Amherst’s town manager, said the memorandum of understanding was “not unimportant, but perhaps more symbolic than anything else.”
“I believe the trustees wanted to be sure that their budget recommendations would go to Town Meeting,” Del Castilho said.
“The trustees didn’t want their recommendations to be changed by the town manager when their budget was presented at Town Meeting.”
“I was pretty hands-off when it came to library matters,” he added.
Attorney Robert Ritchie, a municipal law expert from Amherst, drafted the memorandum of understanding and said it was driven by the library’s practical needs for municipal cash.
“Over the years, the operations and capital costs of the property fluctuated and as things are, they got more expensive and more and more public money was going to into the library,” Ritchie said. “It came to a head with an expansion of the library.”
Ritchie described the talks between town officials and library trustees at the time as “constructive, civil and cooperative,” but he cautions about making too many comparisons between the governance of Jones and Forbes libraries, or any libraries established under wills and trusts.
“There are so many variations on the theme.” Ritchie said. “If there’s one lesson you can learn, there’s no one mold by which all libraries are created.” He said the pending probate court ruling involving Forbes and the city of Northampton should help address the questions of the “nature of the entity” that was created in the 19th century under the will of Charles Edward Forbes, a Northampton lawyer and state Supreme Judicial Court judge.
“It would be helpful to all concerned,” Ritchie said.
Staff Writer Dan Crowley can be reached at dcrowley@gazettenet.com.