Nothing hardens two sides of a disagreement quite like a lawsuit. And with their May 20 legal filing against the city, the trustees of Forbes Library in Northampton put a very old question in stark, new terms: Is the library, which stands to receive over $1.2 million in municipal funding next fiscal year, a department of the city like any other?
Or is the library something else, 135 years after residents of Northampton agreed to the terms of a wealthy judge’s will?
For the last few months, both the trustees and Mayor David J. Narkewicz have circled these questions.
Today, a ruling from the Hampshire Probate and Family Court is needed to resolve this issue. Both sides in the dispute make good points, but it comes down to the law. Given their duty to uphold wishes of their benefactor, Judge Charles Edward Forbes, trustees were right to seek this clarification from the court.
They are not seeking damages, just an answer.
It is clear that Narkewicz has been a library champion. His proposed budget for Forbes represents a 3.2 percent increase over this year, providing all but 5 percent of its operating funds, according to his office. The city has plowed significant amounts into capital improvements and the mayor donated personally to the library’s recent campaign to install a new elevator. He recently referred to Forbes as a “beloved institution.”
But last fall, citing “longstanding issues,” Narkewicz informed Russell Carrier, chairman of the Forbes trustees, that he’d asked City Solicitor Alan Seewald to research legal issues related to the library’s ownership. Once that opinion was in hand, he told Carrier in an email reviewed by the Gazette, “I would like to set up another meeting with you … and work toward some kind of formalized agreement between the city and the board of trustees.”
Seewald’s legal memo, when it came, made clear what sort of agreement Narkewicz had in mind. The judge’s intent, Seewald wrote, was for the library to operate as a municipal institution. “The Library functions as a department of the City.”
That came as a shock to Carrier and the trustees, who disagree forcefully with Seewald’s legal interpretation. They say the terms of the judge’s will hold them – not City Hall – responsible for “managing, preserving and overseeing” the library.
This week, trustees issued this statement: “We take that task very seriously, as we do our role in preserving the fundamental notion that a free public library must be independent of governmental control and political influence.”
Aware that their legal action appeared adversarial, trustees seemed driven to push the point: “Were the Trustees and the Library to become enveloped within City Government (as the City Solicitor is arguing is or should be the case) then there could be no guarantee that in the years to come, the City would continue to fulfill the obligation to support the library it formally accepted under Judge Forbes’ will.”
Carrier has said he does not doubt Narkewicz’s commitment to Forbes. But he says he feels obligated to protect the institution from changes a future mayor might impose years from now.
Until a court says otherwise, the trustees alone are the proper stewards of this library. That’s what the will says, and residents of Northampton agreed to accept the late judge’s precise and exacting terms in 1881.
Both sides say they are “disheartened” by what’s come to pass, and the same probably goes for this library’s devoted patrons.
Given the fractious nature of politics today, even on the local level, some will want to find fault here. The mayor noted, gently, that it was the trustees who broke off what he termed “productive conversations … Unfortunately, the Trustees have unilaterally terminated those discussions and chosen to litigate instead.”
After seeing Seewald’s memo, however, it was reasonable for trustees to believe that their status – along with the institution they are elected to guide – were in some sort of jeopardy, given the equally unilateral actions being taken by the city solicitor to undermine decades of precedent.
As the chief caretaker of taxpayer dollars, it is understandable the mayor might chafe under this structure, since the trustees can be particular about the library’s upkeep. The mayor says he has no interest in managing day-to-day operations of the library and we believe him.
The bigger issue is how the library building is maintained, and at what cost.
Like it or not, the question of whether any Northampton mayor can impose practices of modern municipal management on this institution is rooted in the 19th century. The clarification trustees get from the court will answer that question for a long time. We hope it comes soon.