Published: October 28, 2009 09:29 pm      

NIAGARA FALLS: Library board welcomes Granto, seeks meeting with mayor

The Falls library board has added its second new member in a week, with an eye toward what one member said was, “adding some power players.”

Former Falls Schools Superintendent Carmen Granto was added to the Library’s Board of Trustees at a special meeting on Monday. He joined attorney Robert Restaino, who was added as a trustee last week, at their first regular board meeting Wednesday afternoon.

Granto will fill the term of former trustee Lisa Routhier, which runs to Dec. 31. Restaino is filling the seat of former trustee Frank Roma, whose term is up on Dec. 31, 2010.

“I got a call and I said, ‘I’ll be happy to help out’,” Granto said. “It’s till the end of the year and then we’ll see what happens.”

Trustee Don King welcomed Granto and Restaino to the board and said their help was desperately needed.

“I think we’re in a much stronger position today then we were two weeks ago,” King said.

The two new trustees immediately jumped into a board discussion over the proposed 2010 budget for the library. Library Executive Director Betty Babanoury told the board a proposed $1.7 million spending plan was $65,000 less than what she would have been requested — if the city had asked for a budget proposal.

“I was asked if I want to attend a (City) Council meeting and defend our budget,” Babanoury said. “We were not asked for a (budget) figure so we’re not sure who put this (budget proposal) together. We’re not sure whose budget this is, but it’s not ours.”

King said the city has always asked the library for a spending plan in the past.

“This has never happened before and this is where the rubber meets the road,” King said.

Granto and Restaino suggested the trustees should ask for a meeting with Mayor Paul Dyster and city lawyers to discuss the process used by the city to determine library support and funding.

“(Funding issues are) not going to get any better if we don’t work on it,” Restaino said. “This isn’t about concrete things, like a new fence or a new light, it’s about the process (to get funding for those things).”

On a motion made by Granto and seconded by Restaino, the board unanimously directed trustees President Dolores Marino to seek a meeting with the mayor and corporation counsel.

“I think the city should take a strong look at this library (Earl Brydges) and the LaSalle (branch) and decide if they want theses libraries, because I think they don’t,” Babanoury said. “It’s getting very hard to run this library (system) on the funding we’re receiving from the city.”

Granto said determining the city’s interest in the libraries is a key part of the discussion he hopes to have.

“We better sit down and work out an arrangement with the city,” Granto said.

After the meeting, Restaino, who previously served on the library board from 1996 to 2001, said he sees many of the same challenges now that he saw then.

“I knew there were these (issues),” he said. “We’ll get them.”