ADAMS TWP — Mars Library Board members attended Monday’s supervisors meeting to air concerns regarding what they considered to be directives from the board to give municipalities authority to appoint the library’s board of directors.

The dispute arose from a letter sent through the township solicitor to the library listing four recommendations from the township. One recommendation was turning over the library’s authority to appoint board members to the municipalities that contribute funds.

At the library board’s meeting Aug. 20, Supervisor Thomas Franceschina introduced township manager Gary Peaco as the board’s new liaison to the library and reiterated the point about board appointments.

Library board of trustees member Steven Chadwick took issue with this.

“We are a private, not-for-profit company. So ceding authority in determining the board of directors sounds a lot like total abrogation of the entity by the township,” he said. “And I just wanted to make sure that that was what you guys really wanted to do.”

Chadwick pointed out that there are many similar institutions and organizations that the township donates to and which are not required to cede similar authority to the board. He said this could be a precedent for future actions.

“It seems like a slippery slope that you may not want to start,” he said.

Chadwick also took issue with the way the information was relayed to library officials, saying Franceschina should not have come to the meeting with a verbal message and that his mention of the money the township donates appeared to be a “thinly veiled threat” that donations from the township would no longer be coming if the library failed to comply.

Franceschina argued that the recommendations came as a letter initially and that supervisors’ desire to shift appointment authority to the municipalities was recommended by Butler County Commissioner Kim Geyer.

He also claimed other libraries around have a similar way of doing things.

Franceschina also said he was not at the meeting making directives as a supervisor. Chadwick disagreed.

Township Supervisor Russ Ford also took issue with Franceschina’s actions at the meeting, saying he was inappropriately speaking on behalf of the board when members had not voted on the township taking an official position.

“You’re speaking for yourself, you’re not speaking as far as I know for anyone else that’s sitting up here,” Ford said. “If we’re going to dictate board members to people that we give donations, that now means that this supervisors board will now be in charge of the Adams Area Fire District Board, the Callery Fire Board and EMS ...

“I absolutely, 100 percent do not agree that we should have anything to do with who they choose to have on their board of directors. And I was never asked my opinion and we never voted that we were taking a mandate.”

Franceschina disagreed, saying the board decided to send the recommendations, but added he did speak for himself.

“I brought up my opinion,” he said. “When we had this meeting, we all agreed these are the four bullet points.”

Ford disagreed, saying supervisors did not vote on anything and calling the township’s letter a list of recommendations that were not to be treated as mandates.

Franceschina ultimately recommended township officials discuss the matter at their next meeting.