Three parishes founded the Audubon Regional Library system in 1963 as part of a statewide initiative to put libraries in every parish. West Feliciana pulled out after putting the River Bend power plant on its tax rolls 30 years later, leaving East Feliciana and St. Helena to run the remaining libraries together.
A new schism may be on the horizon another 30 years later, once major renovations and construction projects in both parishes wrap up. East Feliciana taxpayers contribute 83% toward the system's operations but only have half its board members, contributing to growing frustration among its delegation.
To exacerbate things, the three board members from St. Helena Parish resigned without notice last month, leaving the East Feliciana members floundering for about three weeks as they waited for replacement members to be appointed by St. Helena’s Police Jury.
The six-member Audubon Regional Library Board consists of three members from each parish and oversees three libraries split between East Feliciana and St. Helena. All three members from St. Helena — Tanya Carroll, Sally Robertson and Roger Wiersema — resigned the week of July 11. Carroll said she had work and family conflicts, but the others offered no explanation.
St. Helena Police Jury President Frank Johnson said Friday the resignations were caused by personality conflicts among the board members from East Feliciana and St. Helena amid talks of potentially changing representation on the Board to four East Feliciana members and two St. Helena members.
Board member Faye Talbot said she wasn't aware of any plans to change representation on the board.
With only half of the board intact, the remaining members failed to have a quorum at their meeting in mid-July. They couldn’t take any action on the agenda items, whether they were about upcoming library projects, replacing the resigned board members or finding a new library director after the previous one also resigned.
Audubon Regional Library Director Michele Jones resigned June 29 for reasons unknown; she did not return requests for comment. She was the only employee authorized to use the library system’s credit card, meaning her absence prevented the purchase of any books or supplies for any of the three libraries for more than a month.
The library system has also been unable to make any new hires without a director, causing some locations to have to close early because they’re short-staffed.Â
At the end of the actionless meeting last month, the three East Feliciana Board members discussed the possibility of separating the library system into two independent library boards, something some East Feliciana Police Jury members have expressed support for in the past.
“Now that we are aware of how much we’re contributing to their library, people aren’t happy,” Talbot said at the July meeting.
Amid the turmoil, an audit from the Louisiana Auditor's Office also came out that was generally clear apart from two violations: failure to follow proper procedure on reporting sexual harassment trainings and failure to seek bids for a major purchase over $30,000. The Board is working to rectify both findings. (The system conducted the harassment training but didn't formally report doing so; it also made a $46,000 computer purchase using federal funds without soliciting bids.)
Two weeks after the resignations, the St. Helena Police Jury appointed three new members: Rodderick Matthews, Larry Freeman and Major Coleman. All three have additional roles in Parish and state government — Matthews is the director of the Office of Emergency Preparedness, Freeman is a justice of the peace and Coleman is the regional state director for the Rural Revitalization Program.
The three attended the most recent meeting on Aug. 4, though they expressed concern with voting on agenda items when they had little knowledge of the current state of the libraries.
“A lot of information, we just didn’t know coming into this, so it’s hard to vote on anything,” Matthews told the Board during the last meeting.
Still, the Board was able to appoint Faye Talbot as the interim director, member Martin Macdiarmid as president and Matthews as vice president.
Talbot said after that meeting that talks of the breakaway are “on the backburner” until a new director is hired and three major construction projects are completed in Clinton, Jackson and Greensburg, which would take a year to complete at minimum. She also said she’s not sure if the East Feliciana Police Jury would approve the split.
“We would love to separate, but I’m not sure we have the support of our police jury in this moment," Talbot said in an interview.
Renovations are underway in Clinton of a Presbyterian church donated to the library system in 2020 as a new location. The Board plans to meet again at the end of the month to approve the architect's plans, and the renovations are expected to be completed next year.
In Jackson, the library will move to a new location one mile east by December, which will include a rent increase from $350 to $1,865 per month and significant improvements to the facility.
As for St. Helena, several repairs are currently underway at the Greensburg location, and the police jury is finalizing the land purchase for a second library location.
“I know there’s some issues about what we bring in from the tax base, but they (East Feliciana) also have more population,” said Matthews. “Eventually when we grow and get better and get economic development going, then the tax base will grow and we’ll be able to bring more to the table. For me, the library is going to be the quick start to economic development for the Parish.”
