It did not take long for the acrimony and contentiousness that have become typical of meetings of the Great Neck Library Board of Trustees to become apparent during the board's June 24 meeting.

The arguments flared up almost immediately after building committee chairman Andrew Greene made an oral presentation detailing the consensus opinion of his committee with regard to the issue of how to go about selecting an architecture firm to handle the planned renovations. Greene explained that his committee had agreed to use "flexible selection criteria," based on a point value system established for a tentative total of 49 categories, such as understanding of local needs and experience in LEED certification, "green" building construction.

He also made sure to acknowledge that this was simply a "structural way to compare firms," and that many subjective issues, such as personal interactions with representatives of the firms, would also come into play.

What ignited the following half-hour of debate was Greene's statement that the committee's work in finding an architecture firm would have to be a "closed process, done under the veil of executive sessions...following advice from board attorney Kevin Seaman." He went on to compare the decision on selecting a firm to personnel decisions in general, which Greene said are done with a great deal of privacy in the interests of being as fair as possible to all parties involved.

Greene then announced his intention to propose a resolution to refer selection of an architect to the building committee, who would select a final candidate that would then go to the entire board of trustees for a vote. To Greene, this course of action was a "no brainer," especially since the meetings of the committee would be open to all seven members of the board of trustees, including the three that are not members of the building committee, and who would be privy to the same information and paperwork available to the building committee.

Trustee Norman Rutta was the first to take issue with the idea of delegating responsibility for selecting an architecture firm solely to the building committee. Rutta then made clear his belief that it was the responsibility of the entire board to take part in this decision and whittle down the list of candidates, not just the four members on the committee. These views were backed up by trustee and board treasurer, Marietta DiCamilla, who admitted that she "felt isolated" because she was not a member of the building committee. "I want to be a part of this process," she said, adding that it was to make decisions such as these that "I was elected by the public."

Responding to complaints that his intended resolution was undemocratic, Greene compared the library board of trustees to the United States Congress, pointing out that it is customary in Congress to delegate tasks such as these to committees so that they could accomplish the often complicated and involved work of vetting potential candidates for appointed offices.

Trustee Janet Eschagoff agreed with Greene's phrasing of the issue. "My understanding," she explained "is that if you aren't on the building committee you still have input...it is democratic, and is the best and most efficient way to go." Rutta, however, was having none of that reasoning, complaining, "What I'm hearing is that I have a vote that doesn't count." He saw this as a "dangerous trend and precedent," and that the building committee was "hijacking the process," doing so with the approval of board president Martin Sokol.

DiCamilla then took the opportunity to reiterate an opinion that she had voiced in the past, that the building committee should be a committee of the entire board and not just four members, which prompted Sokol to state that a seven- member building committee would be unwieldy and would be "easily bogged down."

The issue proved to be just as contentious among the spectators as it was among the trustees. While Rutta was voicing his opposition to Sokol's suggestion to delay discussion of Greene's resolution until the resolution was officially proposed, a member of the gathered crowd nodded and stated that Sokol was acting "like the Gestapo." Before voting on the resolution, the board gave spectators the chance to opine, who took the opportunity to repeat the points raised by members of the board advancing one argument or the other. The members of the public present quickly began sniping among themselves, offering sarcastic rejoinders and blunt answers to the questions ostensibly directed at the trustees.

The final vote on Greene's resolution was five to two, with trustees Rutta and DiCamilla in the minority.

Following that vote, the next big issue under discussion was the progress of the search for a new permanent library director. President Sokol announced that in June the director search committee held a two-hour meeting with representatives of the national search firm, Gossage Sager Associates. The committee currently intends to have finalists for the position by October, with the hope that a new director can be in place by December of this year. According to the committee, the tone of the meeting was positive, and Gossage Sager Associates seemed "well-prepared" to deal with the issues ahead of them.

All other resolutions, a list, which included proposals for sending members of the board to the New York Library Association Conference, dealing with excess equipment, and ratifying the recommendations of the treasurer's report, passed unanimously and without discussion. At the end of the meeting the public was allowed open-time to voice their concerns about the state of the library. Though one member of the public did attempt to re-ignite discussion of the merits of having a four-member building committee take responsibility for vetting potential architects, none of the board members or other spectators seemed eager to be drawn into a second debate of the matter.