1969-09-11

              FM. M& ALE PUBLIC LIBRARY
27* MAIN ST.
F/ JSffWJDALE, N. Y. 11735
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An Official Newspaper of The Incorporated Village of Farmingdale- Serving Greater Farmingdale, gethpage and Melville
Vol. 7 No. 3 Second Class Postage has bean paid at Farmlagdale, N. Y. 11715 Thursday, September 11, 1969
JEWISH BOOK ISSUE
RAISED AT LIBRARY MEET An explosive Farmingdale
Library Board of Trustees
meeting took place on Tuesday
evening at the South Far­mingdale
Branch. Among the
issues which brought on violent
conflict was a motion by Trustee
Carl E. Gorton to purchase
certain books on the Jewish
religion; a letter of resignation
because of ' the turmoil in the
library' from a recently ap­pointed
librarian; a decision
whether to keep ' the branch
library open one night a week or
whether to reinstitute a program
for children.
Trustee Gorton said that since
he has been charged in the past
as being anti- Semetic he
proposed that the library pur­chase
theSonsoniedition of the
Talmud, sinee the library con­tained
many copies of the Bible,
but not this set of volumes. He
said, " The absence of this basic
book on Judaism smacks of
discrimination."
Library Director Orrirr'B. Dow
injected the information that the
purchase would run into several
millions of dollars since he had
checked it out with Rabbi Paul
Teicher of the Farmingdale
Jewish Center and the book was a
rarity. The Talmud is presently
being translated and has been
47 years in translation and is still
not available in English. Dow
quipped, " If you don't have the
facts, Mr. Gorton, I don't want
you to appear ridiculous." He
said it would be on category of a
rarebook and few Jewish
Seminaries have it."
Gorton went on to ask in his
motion for the purchase of " The
Protocols of the Wise Men of
Zion" and Henry Ford's " In­ternational
Jewry."
Trustee Dr. Albert Meyerstein
who voted against the motion
stated afterwards to The Ob­server,
" Gorton wanted to prove
that he was not anti- Semitic by
proposing that we buy the
Talmud, but the Protocols is very
anti- Semitic." It was an
instrumental book in persecution
of Jews Russia and the way
Gorton said that he wanted the
Protocols in the library as an
original source of material
because the library already
contains a refutation of the
Protocols, " Warrant for
Genocide" by Norman Cohen. He
Stated that for research, he liad to
go to The New York Public
Library and this was ' in­convenient.'
Trustee Irwin Jacovsky said
thai lie was voting against the
motion because no trustee should
liuve any more right tha" '"> y
patron Of the library to suggest
books to be purchased. i » » the
final anaylsis it was up to the
professional judgement of the
library director about which
books should be purchased and
which should not to have rounded
worth while book collection.
Board President Robert
Callahan said that he felt that
Gorton had a right to make such a
suggestion as book purchase.
However in the vote, Gorton's
motion was defeated with
Trustees Gorton and Warren
Altmann voting for the motion
and Callahan and Meyerstein
voting against and Jacovsky
abstained. *
Before voting on the Director's
'^ fcorn'menda lions to accept
resignations. Trustee Jacovsky
asked that the letter of
resignation from Librarian Joan
Hafter be read outloud. He
proceeded to read the following :
" Dear Mr. Dow:
It is with considerable regret
that I am tendering my
resignation, effective September
1, 1969.
" My reasons for leaving can be
summed up in one word disap­pointment.
I have been disap­pointed
with the curtailment of
staff and services which occurred
so dramatically two months after
I arrived on the job. I have been
disappointed in the attitude of the
community toward the Library.
Such an attitude has made me
feel that the future of restoring
the original staff and services is
unpredictable, if not dim."
" It will be my intention to look
for a position offering greater
stability and far less ' turmoil'
than I have witnessed in Far­mingdale."
President Callahan later told
THE OBSERVER that in the
absence of Dow, who was on
vacation when the letter was
received on August 18, he had
written her a letter, begging her
to reconsider."
The motion to accept her
resignation and that of library
page, Ben Kalzen was passed
unanimously. On the recom­mendation
for the approval of
new appointments, Gorton voted
' nay,' probably because it in­cluded
the reappointment of
clerk, Kenneth Uva, who had
written letters to the editor
against Gorton and spoken out at
board meeting in the past. Eileen
Kavanagh was approved as
librarian and Gilda Demasi as
clerk.
Library Director Dow offered
the Board a choice between
spending monies to keep open the
South Farmingdale Branch on
Wednesday nights until 9 p. m. or
reinstating a story hour and
library program for pre­school
age children. Trustee
Gorton said that he wished all the
hours shifted to include evening
hours since morning hours only
helped housewives, not children in
school or working business
commuters. Altmann concurred
with him on this opinion.
Callahan said the he regretted
that the Library had to give up
their program of teaching library
procedure to school children and
pointed out that in particular, this
ommission hurt the students at
St. Kilian's R. C. parochial school
because they had no other library
training provided within the
school.
The Board passed the motion to
add Wednesday evening to the
schedule and thereby did away
with the pre- school children
program
The library Director also asked
the Board to pass a motion for
expenses of librarians to attend a
library convention of New York
Library Association. Turstee
Jacovsky stated that under usual
circumstances he felt that the
attendance at professional
conferences by librarians was a
necessary and useful expenditure
of taxpayers money, but since the
library was now on an " austerity
budget" for this year alone, he
intended to vote against the
motion.
Trustee Gorton immediately
took issue with the word
' Austerity,' stating that the
library was not on an ' austerity'
budget in the same sense as a
school ; s defeated budget.
Jacovsky then corrected the term
to being ' austere.' He said that
since hours and services were cut
from the public, the librarians
would also have to tighten their
belts.
The Board unanimously voted
against the expenditure for
library conferences at this time.
Gorton objected to the ' waste of
library personel's time' in
duplicating 12 pages of a legal
decision for each trustee. The
decision was that of a Supreme
Court of the State of New York in
the County of Rockland with the
Finkelstein Memorial Library as
plaintiff against Central School
District No. 2 in the Towns of
R a m a p o , C l a r k s t o w n,
Orangetown and Haverstraw and
against Arthur Levitt, as Comp­troller
of the State of New York;
and the New York State Em­ployees
Retirement system.
Callahan said that this was
most pertinent information
because on the agenda was an
item for discussion about the
Farmingdale Public Library
Hoard of Trustees questioning the
payment of $ 7,008 to the New
York State Employees
Retirement system because the
library district was assessed the
same agreement as the school
district had with their non-teaching
staff. He said that this
Court decision, stating that
libraries were separate entities
was similar to Farmingdale
court battle on the matter of
holding the date of a referendum
on library budget. They objected
to date being set by the Far­mingdale
Board of Education.
A motion was passed to hold up
payment to the New York State
Retirement system of the $ 7,008
until Comptroller could be con­tacted
and more facts >
On the Rockland County case,
the library won the right to be
independent of the school
systems on the matter of the
employees retirement systems.
The judgement was that the
plaintiff should be treated as a
separate entity. The litigation
regarded the non- teaching em­ployees
of the school district
being granted a 5 percent in­crease
in take- home pay by an
increased contribution to the
Retirement System. The judge
said, " It is sufficient in the
present case to indicate that in
view of this Department, there is
sufficient separation of identity
between a school district and the
public library of such district to
make improper the payment by
the school district of social
security contributions on behalf
of the employees of the public
library corporationi from the
general funds of the school
district".
The Supreme Court Judge was
Morton B. Silberman.
On motion by Trustee
Jacovsky, Trustee Warren
Altmann was unanimouslv ap­pointed
library liaison. vith the
Farmingdale Board of
Education. Several weeks ago,
the Farmingdale Board of
Education had appointed School
Board Trustee Roy Spinetta as
liaison with the library board and
with the Farmingdale Youth
Council.
Since the hour by this time was
11: 15 p. m. Trustee Carl E. Gorton
suggested that the public hearing
between himself and Mr. Dow be
held at the next board meeting.
Callahan overmled him and said
that it should be held tonight, that
it was Gorton who had delayed
the meeting by bringing up
subjects such as the Jewish books
which were not on the agenda.
Gorton then proceeded to read
Director Dow's paper on the
effect that the John Birch Society
candidate Gorton had on the
Farmingdale library with
comments where he considered
Dow's statements to be grossly
inaccurate.
Callahan summed up the
hearing by saying the difference
was only the opinions expressed
by the director and he had a right
to express his opionions at the
ALA convention.
The Board also voted
unanimously to hold up on the
acceptance of the audit by
Albrecht and Marmaro & Co.
because some of it was not
written in laymans language and
they did notjnderstandthe audit.
" It was not a matter of
discrepancies", Callahan stated.
MIDGET FOOTBALL: • The Fanningdale Midget Football
Association plans on holding its annual hazaar from Friday Sep
Lember 12, through Sunday, September 22. James Keats, ( left),
President of the . Association, addresses fellow members at a
meeting finalizing the'fund raising program, vice President Robert
V. Moroney, center, and Oyster Bay own Councilman Frank J,
Hynes listen in. The bazaar will be located on Motor Road and Main
Street in Farmingdale,