Waiting for the Rest of the Story in Gwinnett County Georgia

Gwinnett County library director fired. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 6/12/2013)

Nancy Stanbery-Kellam, the library's Executive Director since Sept. 8, 2008, was fired "without cause" (terminated for reasons not related to misconduct?)  on a 3-1 vote by the library board.

Gwinnett County Public Library 

• Administrative staff
• Executive Director
• Deputy Director
• 5 Division Directors
• Library Board of Trustees

Click on the link and this is what you get.

Not acceptable.

So what, if anything, is behind this personnel issue.

First of all, there's "An Open Letter to Ms. Nancy Stanbery-Kellam" (9/23/2009), wherein Jimmy Wilbanks questions Stanbery-Kellam's professionalism.

I was again disappointed at the lack of professionalism I saw at the September 22, 2009 Library Board of Trustee meeting. Once again under your leadership, the board chose the easy way out. Yes you suggested a compromise--making a computer lab out of a thriving library branch at Dacula.

At the same time, a group called Save Gwinnett's Community Libraries, called for5 Stanbery-Kellam's ouster.

We call for a vote of No Confidence in Nancy Stanbery-Kellam, the Executive Director of Gwinnett Public Library, and we call for her removal as Executive Director for her reckless actions: 

1) In her desire to close Dacula's Library. 

2) For changing the Gwinnett library system from community to a regional based system without community input. 

3) For her disregard for the opinions of the citizens of Gwinnett County.

The group's pleas fell on mostly deaf ears.  Only 192 people signed the petition, well short of the goal of 5,000.

In Stanbery-Kellam's defense, Gwinnett County was especially hard-hit when the housing bubble burst in 2007.  Since then, the county, along with the rest of the Atlanta metro area and much of the United States, has experienced the double whammy of falling property values and shrinking property tax revenues.

Gwinnett, GA Faces Million Dollar Budget Cut. (Library Journal, 1/17/2013)

It ain't over yet. On January 3, the Gwinnett County, GA, Board of Commissioners adopted a $1.46 billion budget for 2013, 7.1 percent lower than the previous year, citing shrinking property tax revenues. GCPL took a substantial hit; the final budget allocates $2 million for library materials, down from $3 million a year ago.