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Judge OKs smaller board for library
Wednesday, June 07, 2000 By Jan Ackerman, Post-Gazette
Staff Writer
With the stroke of a pen, an Allegheny County Orphan's Court Division
judge redesigned industrialist Andrew Carnegie's 101-year-old plan for
governing the public library he endowed to Carnegie.
Yesterday, Common Pleas Judge Walter R. Little granted a motion reducing
the size of the board of trustees of the Andrew Carnegie Free Library from
17 to 12 members and eliminating the position of lifetime trustee.
"If Mr. Carnegie were alive today, he would take this action to streamline
the board," said T. Lawrence Palmer, a senior deputy attorney general for
state Attorney General Mike Fisher's office. The attorney general's office
monitors trusts to make certain the wishes of the deceased are being
carried out.
"In terms of the changes in society, the court has the authority and
discretion to grant this petition," Little said as he approved changes to
the 1899 declaration of trust drawn up by Carnegie.
The changes were requested by some members of the library's governing
board, who are working with numerous community groups to try to raise $5
million to restore the gigantic library. The library, which opened on May
1, 1901, needs a total overhaul, and representatives of foundations have
told the board that it needs to revamp the way it does business if it
wishes to attract donations and grants.
"I am relieved," said Elizabeth Martin of Crafton, president of the board
of trustees and a trustee since 1985. She said getting a quorum to hold
meetings had been a constant problem. This year, she testified at
yesterday's hearing, the trustees were able to get a quorum only once.
With a 17-member board, nine needed to be present to constitute a quorum.
With the new 12-member board, only seven members need to be present to do
business.
"We have not been able to elect new officers," said Martin, adding that
the lack of a quorum has stymied other efforts, such as hiring a library
consultant to help plan the renovation.
The modifications call for nine members to be elected for three-year terms
and three members to be appointed by Carnegie council. There will be no
life trustees.
"We are not the Supreme Court," Martin said after the hearing.
While no one formally objected to the plan, Glenn A. Walsh, one of the
lifetime trustees and the library's historian, already had submitted his
resignation, to become effective if the judge modified the trust
agreement.
"I do not feel I can continue to serve on a board that decides to breach
this trust," he said after the hearing.
Walsh said that when Carnegie stipulated that he was going to give a huge
gift to Carnegie, "the least the trustees could do is come to a meeting at
least once a month."
Martin was sorry that Walsh decided to resign.
"He is a very valuable volunteer who does an awful lot," she said.
Walsh said the Andrew Carnegie Free Library in Carnegie was one of five
libraries that Carnegie endowed; home communities of these libraries were
not required to publicly subsidize them. The others were in Munhall,
Braddock, Duquesne and Dunfermline, Scotland, Carnegie's hometown.The
Duquesne library was razed in 1968.
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