THETFORD — More than a dozen residents are vying for eight positions on a reconstituted Board of Trustees for the Latham Memorial Library.
In preparation for the election, in which all of the town’s eligible voters may cast ballots at the library and by mail between Dec. 4 and 11, the 14 candidates will appear at “meet-and-greet” forums on Saturday at the library and on Nov. 30 at the town’s recycling center, both from 10 a.m. to noon.
The board of the privately run library, which in recent years has consisted entirely of appointees, began scrambling to reorganize in July, after learning that it lacked the legal authority to act on anything it had voted to do since 2017. Among its recent votes was a decision in June to replace librarian Peter Blodgett, who has had the job for 33 years.
That vote triggered an outcry from Blodgett supporters, then led to the revelation that the board’s by-laws require the election of members who are not appointed by congregants of the neighboring First Congregational Church of Thetford.
In statements posted on the library website, several of the candidates refer to Blodgett’s status, among them Steven Tofel, one of two residents whom the Selectboard appointed as interim trustees in July.
“Our library needs to move past the difficulties of last summer,” Tofel said in his statement. “There is no reason that people of goodwill, acting collaboratively, cannot continue to move in a direction that serves our community and library patrons.”
Current board members Pauline Cole, Andrew Cook, Pamela Fein and Beth Fernandez join Tofel in seeking to stay on the board, and former member Heinz Trebitz, a retired chemist, aims to rejoin the panel on which he served for three years.
Candidates who have not served on the board are Katrina Burch, Eugene Tchana, retired lawyer Robert McConnaughey, retired Dartmouth College librarian Barbara DeFelice, former Sunapee librarian Nancy Farwell, former Chelsea Public Library children’s librarian Ashley Jamele, and library volunteers E.D.M. Landman and Hedi Parafina.
During 20 years as a volunteer, Landman said, “I have seen how important the library is to the Thetford community, and how it has benefited from Peter Blodgett’s friendly and tactful leadership.”
After five years of volunteering, Parafina, a retired physician, said, “Peter Blodgett has much to do with giving me (a) positive feeling about Latham Library and with my desire to volunteer.”
And McConnaughey opened his statement by citing “the exceptional management of librarian Peter Blodgett.”
“Going forward,” McConnaughey added, “it will be worthwhile for the legitimate board to include a member or members capable of providing legal perspective as well as experience in the guidance of entities of an educational nature.”
The composition of the board of trustees has been in flux for several years. In 2016, the Selectboard voted to remove the Latham trustees from the municipal ballot. In response, “the Board omitted to change its bylaws” to create a mechanism for elections, the board’s then-Chairwoman Marla Ianello conceded in July.
Once a new board is in place, one of its first orders of business will be determining how and when to replace Blodgett, who has indicated an interest in retiring on his own timetable, preferably through a transition plan negotiated with the board for him to leave in 2021. Blodgett, who works 30 hours a week, was making $37,167 in 2017, according to the most recent public tax-form report of his annual salary.
On Thursday, Blodgett declared the turnout of candidates “encouraging,” and added that library patrons he is seeing “have expressed a willingness to vote in December.”
Thetford residents can cast paper ballots at the library during its regular business hours between Dec. 4 and 11. Those planning to vote by mail must make sure their ballots reach the library by Dec. 11; to request mail-in ballots, write to Latham Election, P.O. Box 182, Thetford Center, Vt. 05075, or email election@thetfordlibrary.org.
Correction
Barbara DeFelice retired last year as the director of scholarly communications, copyright and publishing program at the Dartmouth College Library. An earlier version of this story misstated her employment status.