By Josh Resnek
Everett’s able assistant city solicitor Keith Slattery was trotted out Monday night by the mayor to inform the city council that everything is going to change about the management and administration of the city’s public libraries, and is right now being changed by the mayor, but that nothing will really change.
So what’s up with that?
The mayor had Slattery respond to an outcry from the citywide library family of friends and supporters that are agitated and some of them dismayed and concerned about the mayor grabbing the libraries and putting them under his administration.
“The mayor wants everyone to know the library is important to him. No library branches are closing or hours reduced,” Slattery told the council.
“The board will remain but the duties of the board will be curtailed,” he added.
Such a comment is juxtaposed against that apparently made by the mayor some years back when running for office.
“I made it through college without ever stepping foot in a library,” he was quoted as saying.
The Leader Herald reported last week that a convicted felon had been hired by the Parlin Library at the request of the mayor for a position recently and that she is working at the library.
The mayor’s office did not respond to our inquiry.
A meeting of a council committee with a member of the legal office to detail the library’s transformation into a job referral agency for the mayor will be held Wednesday at city hall.