34 years of trust between library groups lost over demands for a contract

When you hear there's a bitter fight involving money and power, you figure it's the usual suspects. The city versus the county. The county versus the state. Steve Wynn versus Sheldon Adelson. The Las Vegas Review-Journal versus the Las Vegas Sun.

The last ones you'd think would be feuding would be the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District and the Friends of Southern Nevada Libraries, an all-volunteer nonprofit formed in 1974 to support the library system.

Yet on Thursday, the split became quite public at a library district board meeting.

It began peacefully enough. Library board member Louis Overstreet reported on his previous meeting with the Friends. He said a contract between the library district and the Friends is necessary.

The Friends raise about $300,000 a year, primarily from selling books the libraries no longer want. Overstreet said a formal accounting for those funds is critical and a contract will provide a guideline for the future.

A relationship that relied on trust for 34 years now needs a contract.

The Friends' leaders, however, are furious at the suggestion the group's finances and operation need oversight from the library district.

Representatives of the Friends said the bookstores in the library branches could be forced to close soon because the library district has stopped releasing discarded or donated books to them and they are running out of books to sell.

Connie Barricks, secretary of the all-volunteer nonprofit, said in a statement: "Should the bookstores be forced out of business due to lack of stock, this will have a detrimental effect upon our senior citizens, low-income families, children, and teachers. ... This is the only outlet for used materials many of them can afford."

She asked: "Is this really how the library district wants to leave its mark on the community?"

The Friends believe this was a power grab by the library's Executive Director Dan Walters, his attempt to put the Friends under the library's own nonprofit foundation.

"That's not true," Walters said Friday.

"To put the Friends under the foundation never occurred to me."

However, he conceded that a statement he might have made at another meeting could have led to such a misunderstanding and it could have been inferred that was his goal.

The draft contract I reviewed didn't do that, however.

Yes, the library board wants a contract that gives it some oversight and access to the Friends' finances. But the man behind that request is new library board member Jamie Costello, a businessman with an accounting background, who last fall looked at the financial information provided to the board and suggested they needed a contract with the Friends memorializing the relationship.

The library wants an annual audit performed on the Friends' finances and a formal agreement that the money raised will go to the library, not any other entity.

At the meeting, however, the Friends said that if they don't get books soon, they'll be forced to close everything and donate the money they now have to another charity.

The bookstores generate big money today, about $300,000 a year. About 100 volunteers work out of the libraries, and when the volunteers aren't there, library staff accepts the payments.

The Friends then donate the money to the district for specific purposes, such as author lectures, the Big Read, the Summer Reading Program, Storytelling Festival, Heritage Month programs and more.

"We want a process in place so there is transparency and accountability," said library board member Elaine Sanchez, who emphasized that the Friends are not entitled to those books.

The obvious question: Does anyone think there is some hanky-panky about the Friends' finances?

"Absolutely not," Walters said. "It's not a matter of suspecting people are stealing, but this is big money."

Walters said that as soon as the Friends sign a contract, the books in storage will be turned over to the bookstores. But not before.

Now it's in the hands of the lawyers. The Friends have hired Barry Levinson, and the library lawyer is Gerald Welt.

Readers won't care who is to blame, but they're the ones who will pay the price if no agreement is reached and the bookstores close.

Of course, if the Friends of Southern Nevada Libraries shuts down, perhaps the library foundation would be willing to do the job.

Jane Ann Morrison's column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0275.