By John Burton
RED BANK — The first library board of trustees meeting for the slate of newly installed members, originally scheduled for Thursday, has been postponed for a week.
According to Elizabeth Hanratty, a new board member, the meeting had to be rescheduled because a number of members were unable to make the 6:30 p.m. Thursday session.
The board is now scheduled to convene at 6 p.m. Thursday, May 1, according to the library website.
During a special borough council meeting on April 16, Mayor Pasquale Menna named Hanratty and three other borough residents to fill the board slots, vacated after all but one board member resigned on April 12.
The mass resignation for the volunteer board was in response to the increasingly contentious relationship between the board and borough officials over the board’s proposed library budget that included staff layoffs and slashing the library’s operating hours and programs to address a $131,000 budget deficit. Board members saw the council’s insistence that they adopt the council’s alternative budget and reinstate two full-time employees, who had been laid off, as undermining their independence.
