Letter: Too Many Irregularities in Oversight of Jones Library Expansion
Photo: amherstma.gov
The following letter was sent to the Amherst Town Council on May 3, 2024.
This letter strongly supports canceling the approximately $55,000,000 Jones Library project at once. The Jones Library Trustees should propose a suitable plan for repairing the library building.
Going forward, there are three concerns that I think Town Council would do well to keep in mind. I write as a former Library Trustee President who has served on the Town Audit Committee, and an attorney (D.C. Bar) for more than 45 years.
My first concern is the Library Trustees’ secretive fundraising for their promised portion of this project’s costs. This is a public project. Transparency is vital. Donors wanting privacy can be listed as “Anonymous.” Most unusually, however, the Trustees chose to conceal their fundraising expenses and donations under the aegis of the private, non-profit Friends of the Jones Library System, Inc. Why?
The Public Charities Division of the Attorney General’s Office can investigate the Friends’ compliance with Massachusetts non-profit finance law. But the town cannot audit the Friends. This, plus the Friends’ exemption from the Open Meeting Law, defeats almost all transparency. This is not how to conduct the public’s business.
My second concern is that managing such a huge project is beyond the Trustees’ capabilities. Amherst residents Maria Kopicki and Toni Cunningham report a disturbing instance of inept management in their comments to Jeff Lee’s article in the Indy, “Library Docs in Disarray as Town Payments Pass $2M“. That instance is this. The Trustees’ Jones Library Building Committee (JLBC) last met on January 4, 2024. The Trustees either failed to notice this, or they noted but overlooked it. What was so inept about this? The JBLC’s committee charge vests it with authority to approve invoices for the library project. The JBLC is thus responsible, on the part of the library, for keeping payments flowing to project contractors.
You well know that to authorize the payment of library project invoices, the JBLC must duly notice a public meeting, have a quorum, and vote. Since the JLBC last met on January 4, it could not and did not vote to approve library project invoices to be paid in February, March, and the first half of April. This is no way to manage a project that uses contractors.
My third concern is that someone, evidently connected with the library, cut corners that should never be cut. During the months that the JLBC failed to meet, the town nonetheless paid 16 invoices for the library project. These totaled more than $300,000. This is profoundly disturbing. The JLBC could not have authorized their payment. Who purported to do so?
It should go without saying that the town can disburse public funds legally only when it has a valid authorization to do so. From my own experience with library invoices, I am confident that Town Hall has what appears to be a legal authorization to cut each of those 16 project-related checks. The town website states, after all, that the Finance Department’s Accounting Division “monitor[s] all financial activity for … legal compliance.”
Did the town accordingly disburse some $300,000 in public money, based on merely purported authorizations? If so, might someone be liable, personally, for reimbursing the town? And what could possibly have motivated anyone to do a thing so obviously wrong?
Town Councilors can thank their lucky stars that alert residents brought this — let’s call it a fiasco — to light now. The Library’s demolition/expansion project is highly complex. Continuing it would apparently risk leaving the town open, for several more years, to more such fiascos.
Canceling the library’s project at once thus makes excellent sense. The Trustees need a repair plan that is more modest in scope and costs less; that they can manage; and which can be completed in a reasonably short span of time. It is time to clear the decks and move on.
Sarah McKee
Sarah McKee was an Amherst resident for more than 20 years. She is a former President of the Jones Library Trustees, and is a member of the D.C. Bar.
Thank you, Sarah: your comments are phrased in the most gentle manner possible, so it’s tempting — in the spirit of “Luther the anger translator” for President Barack Obama — to amplify and sharpen your observations.
But I’ll resist that temptation for the moment, and raise a question instead: since this demolition/expansion project is also a direct recipient of Federal funds, would such malfeasance place those involved in jeopardy of not just a Massachusetts investigation, but a Federal one?
That’s a serious question, Rob. Presumably you mean a federal criminal investigation. I know nothing about any federal agency-specific regulations that might apply.
What representations did someone make to the federal government agency that made a grant? These would be key. Then, federal criminal code Title 18, Section 1001, might apply. If another statute applies, the analysis would generally be the same. Section 1001 (a) provides:
“[W[hoever, … knowingly and willfully—
(1) falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact;
(2) makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation; or
(3) makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry;….”
The omitted possible consequences are dire.
If asking the FBI to investigate, therefore, you’d need to show evidence of the kinds of facts that §1001 specifies. This includes evidence that relevant persons acted “knowingly and willfully.” It might be a very heavy lift.
When I first read the Library’s application for its Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners construction grant, I was taken aback by its representation, on page 9, that the Jones Library was NOT included on either the State or the federal listing of historic properties. The Jones Library is listed on both. In my view, this was a materially false representation to a state agency.
But that was then. As to this vexatious demolition/expansion project, I think it time for the dead to bury their dead. Town Council should end it on Monday night, and start cleanly on a responsible plan for Library repairs.