Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Katz prevails against library trustees in court

From the Queens Chronicle:

A federal judge has dismissed the lawsuit brought against Borough President Melinda Katz by six former Queens Library trustees who had sought to have their dismissals overturned by the court, Katz announced Sunday.

The six were members of a faction that had shielded now-suspended library President and CEO Tom Galante from attempts by a minority of the board to put him on leave while investigations into alleged financial mismanagement played out, and that had refused to provide City Comptroller Scott Stringer with all the documents he sought for an audit of the system.

Already planning structural reforms to the library, and faced with the bloc’s intransigence, which she and other officials considered a slap in the face of the public, Katz spearheaded state legislation carried by state Sen. Mike Gianaris (D-Astoria) and Assemblyman Jeff Aubry (D-Corona) that allowed for the immediate removal of board members by the office that had appointed them.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The new chief fund raiser for the library, like his predecessors on the board, has extensive ties to the construction industry.

Unless the library board starts to be built with new members from academia and not third stringers with ties to the party and the building industry nothing has changed.

But since everyone are political appointments nothing will change.

Anonymous said...

From the DAily News Aug 1, 2014...
"Plaintiffs Joseph Ficalora, William Jefferson, Grace Lawrence, George Stamatiades, Jacqueline Arrington and Terry Mangino were all appointed by Katz’s predecessor. They were all part of a clique that backed embattled library chief Thomas Galante, even after a series of stories in the Daily News revealed his free-spending ways — much of it on the public’s dime."

These trustees should have their financials closely audited. How much was Galante paying them for their support?

Anonymous said...

These trustees should have their financials closely audited. How much was Galante paying them for their support?

Your close to the something behind all this .. but not quite there yet.