NEW BERLIN – After years of non-compliance with state law, the New Berlin Library Board of Trustees is being mandated by the State Board of Education to hold an election for all nine board members.

The New Berlin Library (NBL) is an Association Library, which means that it is run by the members of the library rather than the public at large – unlike a public library. Part of the rights of the membership of an Association Library is to vote for the board of trustees of their library. According to the bylaws of The New Berlin Library – and state law – each of these seats must come up for election every five years. This was not the case in New Berlin.

According to Darlene LaBrie, Library Director, this came to light when the library filed its last annual report with the state. “After filing the annual report, the State Board of Education got back to me and said that the term limits of our library board did not comply with state law,” said LaBrie.

When the state saw these inconsistencies, they asked LaBrie to provide prior election material so that they could look into these irregularities further. “I was unable to provide these materials because there were none,” said LaBrie.

The board was made aware of the state's assessment, LaBrie claims, but nothing was done. Months went by. The week before Thanksgiving, the state informed the library that they must hold an election for all nine seats on the board. “The day before Thanksgiving,” said LaBrie, “the board conceded three seats – two that were empty and one that was soon to be empty.” But this was not enough.

The Monday after Thanksgiving, library members started a petition demanding that all nine seats be up for election, just as the state had mandated. Between Monday and Thursday of that week more than 100 signatures were collected from patrons visiting the library.

“There has been a lot of community and member support for this election,” said LaBrie, “Before this, people didn't even know we had a board.”

At the state's request, and prompted by the outpouring of library member support, the Four County Library System became involved.