Petition to Amend Declaration of Trust of the
Andrew Carnegie Free Library
Carnegie, Pennsylvania
Cover Page

This Trust instrument is enforced by the Orphans' Division, Court of Common Pleas, County of Allegheny, Commonwwealth of Pennsylvania. A petition to amend this Declaration of Trust was entered into Orphans' Court in May of 2000. The petitioners, several members of the Library's Board of Trustees and the Library's Advisory Board, sought several major changes to the governing structure of the Library's Board of Trustees.

The original Declaration of Trust agreement included a 17-member Board of Trustees consisting of 10 Life Trustees and 7 Ex-Officio Trustees. Many of the early libraries, museums, and other non-profit Boards of Trustees, set-up by Andrew Carnegie, included a similar structure. Life Trustees, who sat on the Library Board of Trustees of the Andrew Carnegie Free Library with no expiration date to their term of office, would leave the Board in one of four ways: resignation, death, election to the office of Mayor or Councilman in the Borough of Carnegie(whereupon they immediately became an Ex-Officio Trustee of the Library and their Life Trustee seat would be vacant), or disqualification for cause by the vote of seven or more Life Trustees at a special meeting called for that purpose. The Mayor(originally Burgess) of the Borough of Carnegie and all six members of the Borough Council consitituted the Ex-Officio Trustees of the Library Board; per Andrew Carnegie's instructions, these Ex-Officio Trustees had all the privileges(including voting privileges) that Life Trustees enjoyed--except, Ex-Officio Trustees could not vote to appoint or depose Life Trustees on the Board.

The Honorable Walter R. Little, presiding as Judge in the Orphans' Division, Court of Common Pleas, County of Allegheny, granted the petition in its entirety on Tuesday Morning, 6 June A.D. 2000 at precisely 10:50:00 a.m. Eastern Daylight Saving Time. Thus the Board of Trustees of the Andrew Carnegie Free Library is now structured to include 9 elected term trustees and 3 Ex-Officio Trustees, for a total Board complement of 12 trustees. The 9 elected term trustees will be elected for three-year terms; these trustees may serve only two consecutive three-year terms, then must be off of the Board for at least one year before being eligible for reelection to the Board. The President of the Council of the Borough of Carnegie will select three Ex-Officio Trustees to sit on the Library Board, from the members of Council and the Mayor.

With the web links below, the petition is given, in its entirety.

A preliminary Court Order, to officially file the original Declaration of Trust agreement, is also provided in its entirety. This filing includes the entire Declaration of Trust agreement, with the exception of the last page(page 12 of the Library's original Trust and By-Laws book). The last page was inadvertantly ommitted from this Court proceeding. The last page indicates that all seventeen original Library Trustees(appointed by Andrew Carnegie) signed and put their personal seal on the Declaration of Trust agreement, before a Notary Public. This preliminary Court Order was amended, by the Honorable Judge Walter Little, at the June 6 court hearing, to include the ommitted page.

The legal advertisement regarding the Court hearing, set for Tuesday, June 6, 2000 at 10:30 a.m. in Court Room Number 3 of the Honorable Judge Walter Little at 1700 Frick Building in Downtown Pittsburgh, is also presented here [Used with Permission of Gateway Publications.].