Bethlehem Library continues to contemplate room policy

BNFP calls on board to act

DELMAR – At its April 15 board meeting, the Bethlehem Public Library’s board of trustees continued to consider revisions to the Library’s meeting room policy.  The need for updating galvanized after the Library was unable to control a crowd at a December 6 event with speaker Miko Peled.

Trustee Caroline Brancatella said the Library is incorporating board member comments, standardizing language, and working within counsel from Library attorneys to produce a final draft.  Brancatella hopes the policy committee will have a final draft ready for the Board’s review at the May 2024 meeting.  She reminded the Board that the Library is not required to have public meeting rooms, but if it does it needs a consistent policy.

Currently, as an interim solution, the rooms are being subject to a capacity limitation to avoid any issues with overcrowding. “We control how many chairs are in the room so that self limits…There are just the amount of chairs that are supposed to be in there,” Kirkpatrick said.

In the meantime, Bethlehem Neighbors For Peace, a local organization, continued to voice its opposition to the one year ban on its using library public meeting rooms.  The penalty was imposed after Executive Director Geoffrey Kirkpatrick determined BNFP violated library policy by selling books on library premises.   BNFP appealed from that determination.  The Library’s board upheld the determination that a violation occurred, but directed Kirkpatrick to reconsider the length of the ban. Six BNFP members protested the ban during the April 15 meeting public comment session where they also complained that the library had not responded to a complaint it filed alleging its members had been harassed.

Kirkpatrick said BNFP and Library attorneys “are in discussion” and there “are a bunch of separate issues that bleed into each other.”

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