Commissioner Kim Carney Recasts Decisions in Response to Library Board Chair’s Criticism of Cutbacks

Recasting her decisions in a different light, Flagler County Commissioner Kim Carney Monday took issue with criticism by the chair of the county’s Library Board of Trustees of County Commission decisions about the library system, and about the absence of commission members from Library Board of Trustees meetings all year. 

Board of Trustees Chair Jim Ulsamer, in an article published here on Aug. 15, objected to the commission’s decision to scale back hours at the Palm Coast library branch by 23 percent by the time the new Nexus Center library opens in Bunnell in December, saying the library is heavily used. See: “The Truth About Flagler’s Public Libraries: Doing Far More Than You Realize, with Far Less Than Necessary.”

Without naming them, Ulsamer was also critical of commissioners who in a budget workshop last spring had suggested a halt to the Nexus Center construction and had pledged not to approve the addition of new employees to staff the new library. Commissioner Richardson had made the remark about construction, Carney about additional employees. 

Both have been critical of the $16 million library project. They’ve also been critical of the county administration, alleging the commission had not been told of the operating costs once the Nexus Center opens.  Those costs include staffing levels mandated by grants that underwrote substantial costs of the library. 

Commissioner Leann Pennington is the commission’s liaison to the library board. Carney is the alternate liaison. Neither has been to any of the five Library Board of Trustees meetings held since they were assigned last December. 

“I serve on five boards voluntarily as a commissioner, and we can’t possibly be on every board, so that’s why we split our time,” Carney said. “There’s a problem right now with the timing of their board meetings. We’re here. I mean, we can’t be everywhere and be at all of these subcommittee events, so we try the hardest we can.”

The Board of Trustees held meetings on Jan. 13, March 10, April 14, May 12 and June 9, all at 4:30 p.m. at the Palm Coast branch. On Jan. 13, the County Commission had a 1 p.m. workshop and a 5 p.m. meeting. Neither commissioner assigned to the Board of Trustees could have attended the library meeting. On June 9, the commission had a three and a half hour workshop that ended at 4:30 p.m., just as the library board meeting was starting. 

On the three other library board meeting days, there were no commission meetings. 

“There were some innuendos in the article that we are cutting back in Palm Coast,” Carney said. There were no innuendos. Ulsamer was directly critical of the plan to scale back hours at the Palm Coast branch and reduce days of operation to five days, from six. “Cutting staff and reducing operating hours by 23 percent is going to have a big, negative impact on service levels to Palm Coast residents,” Ulsamer wrote. “A working woman or man accustomed to going to the library after work, perhaps with their children in tow, may find the doors closed.”

“I just, I think there was a lot of projections going on, and I’m really looking forward to getting our Nexus center up and advertised,” Carney said–again, mischaracterizing Ulsamer’s reference to hours. He was not projecting. He was basing his statement on the precise plan of hours of operations at both libraries that County Administrator Heidi Petito presented to the commission at a budget workshop, and that the commission approved. (See the plan as presented by Petito on July 2 here.) 

Carney accurately referred to more recent discussions between the commissioners and Palm Coast City Council members about attempting to prevent cuts in staffing and hours. Those discussions took place at a joint meeting of the two boards earlier this month. But the discussion was prompted by Council member Ty Miller, not by county commissioners. 

Miller at first sought to have Palm Coast money fill in for the $180,000 or so the county was cutting from the Palm Coast branch, at least for the coming year, to avoid service and program cuts. In a compromise with County Chair Andy Dance, who was thinking in the moment, the two sides agreed to see how library attendance and services go once the Nexus Center opens in December, then analyze the numbers in March and make staffing and program adjustments then, if necessary. The discussion was mostly between Miller and Dance, not with Carney. Carney chimed in only to say that “we weren’t given a lot of information on how the new Nexus Center will impact” staffing. “I don’t see it being that major of an impact. But we might get some very negative pushback on this once it opens.” Petito said the ribbon-cutting would take place in December. 

“We’re going to seven days a week. So we are providing more,” Carney said at that joint meeting. The overall hours of library service will increase substantially when the two branches’ hours are combined. But a library system doesn’t measure access and hours by combined hours, but by branch hours, as it is generally irrelevant to a patron in one neighborhood what hours a branch in a distant neighborhood might offer. On the other hand, the Nexus Center will vastly expand access and hours for the south side, as intended–but at the expense of the Palm Coast branch. 

“Change is difficult sometimes, but our goal was not to deplete or diminish,”  Carney said, again downplaying the depletion of Palm Coast’s staff and the diminishment of hours, which she and her colleagues approved. “Yeah, what we’re offering in Palm Coast, and if that’s the way it came off, then I think time will tell.” 

Richardson and Pennington did not address the Ulsamer article. Ulsamer was not in town this week.