Free Library Association elects five new members to board

1-21-26

By Lauren Royce, Editor
MONTROSE — The Susquehanna County Historical Society and Free Library Association (SCHS&FLA) voted in five new board members on Jan. 17. The library hopes to move forward with its goals of neutrality and financial improvement in the new year.
According to numbers from Will Squier, FLA president, some 265 voters turned out to vote on the five candidates.
In the polls, Ginny Lewis received 89%; Margot Parsons, 74.8%; Steve Hinds, 74.5%; Eric Powers, 75%, and Aaron Boyce, 73.6%. Lewis will serve as the Historical Society representative, Parsons will serve as the Susquehanna branch representative, Hinds will serve as treasurer and Powers and Boyce will both be board members.

“The turnout was very good and results are encouraging to the Board and would indicate that we are heading in the direction that most in our county agree with,” Squier said.
The ballots were a simple yes or no next to each candidate’s name. Voting began as early as 12:30 p.m. and went through a box change after 2 p.m. As cars cycled in and out of the parking lot, people milled around inside the library doors getting their addresses confirmed by Rita Cooley, Heather Lord, Karen Braker-Reed and Mary Beth Manns. Some just dropped off their ballots to the box and left, while about 50 or so people stayed for the meeting at 2 p.m.
“I think the library is for everybody,” said Jennie Castrogiovanni, who came to vote on the board members. “I’m interested in what’s going on and I want things to be fair for everybody.” Castrogiovanni said she hoped the library could keep being a comfortable and vibrant place in the spirit of its founder, Susan Stone.

“I’m thinking the library has been doing so well in the past year, it should continue,” said Jeanne Blodnikar, who also came to vote. Her husband Tony Blodnikar agreed. “What we saw posted the other day, it was very positive,” Tony Blodnikar said. He was referring to the notice of the meeting that ran in the Dec. 24 edition of the Susquehanna Independent.
Achievements listed in the post included a net gain of over $100,000 in the association’s endowments in 2025. Fundraising efforts gained over $12,000 from Christmas in Montrose, participating in NEPAGives and the Love Your Library Auction, record-setting profit for the Blueberry Festival, and restored parental rights to have full access to their minor children’s library records with an updated library card policy.
Lorraine Chidester, CEO of the FLA, gave a presentation on each branch’s successes and events from throughout 2025, such as when the funds raised from a luncheon with local historian and author Larry Cook raised funds to purchase furniture for the children’s area in the Forest City Branch. She also highlighted what the association’s goals were moving forward.

“As the CEO, one of my primary responsibilities has been to ensure that our organization is on sound financial footing,” Chidester said. “Our financial reports have been refined and clarified for our treasurer and finance committee, with clear explanations of monthly and year to date income and expenditures.” Chidester said she met with auditors and the county commissioners to rebuild trust with the association.
“My hope is that we work to find ground that is common to all of us and focus on the things that we agree on, to be the focus of our future efforts applied to the association,” Squier said. The three goals of the board: to make the library and historical society a neutral and welcoming resource for residents; managing finances so the endowments grow and increasing the pay scale of library employees in the county to be more competitive.

Bonnie Yuscavage, curator of the Susquehanna County Historical Society, also gave a recap of the past year and how some activities will change and expand in the coming year. For example, the Heritage Trail, which was a hit in 2025, will take place during a two day weekend instead of one day in early October.
In an interview Thursday, Chidester said that typically this meeting would take place in November. The board moved to have it in January to have a full view of year end accomplishments and to present what’s happening in the next year.
Chidester started her position in the beginning of 2024. At the end of 2024, seven of 14 members left the association, but to keep it going she had to keep it above nine members. Then, there had to be a board nominating committee to get that number back up to nine.
The SCHS&FLA membership consists of over 700 people, Chidester said. And for as long as anyone can remember with bylaws dating back to 1907, the bylaws said that to vote one must be a member in good standing and make a contribution. But nothing anywhere says what the contribution has to be. Chidester and Squier both acknowledged this was confusing language, as the issue had been brought to the board before.
“It’s a thing that we need to address and get laid down,” Squier said.
Chidester said that it was during the June 2025 meeting, the board changed one word in the bylaws to allow the board to make changes to bylaws themselves instead of having membership votes on changing them.
“When you have a membership that votes for trustees, those trustees are your elected representatives,” Squier said, like school board members.
Various controversies have plagued the association: accusations of homophobia, disagreeing accounts on the handling of finances and confusion around what “contribution” means in the bylaws and how it relates to the association’s articles of incorporation.
“We’ve never made a policy or a bylaw that has anything to do with any sexual orientation or gender— and we’ve never banned a book,” Squier said. “I believe we need to keep the library neutral, and make it a place where everyone’s welcome. But not use it as a platform.” The board will make a decision whether or not to display its pride month display, he said.
Former librarian and current association member Christine Ely came to cast her votes on Saturday as well. She said her being laid off in 2025 by the association “wasn’t for financial reasons,” as the board claims. She had begun her position in 2022.
In an interview Monday post-election, Ely said she felt the vote was unfairly rigged in the candidates’ favor.
“They were successful in getting their friends to come out and vote for them, I know that they let their friends know that any kind of donation, even a penny entitled them to vote,” Ely said, adding that the board advertised within churches and friend groups to gain votes.
“The reason I think it was rigged is that typically people in the past that have been members, have something to do with the library,” Ely said. Members coming from different parts of the county isn’t what’s odd, but that they’ve seemingly never had anything to do with the library, she said. Ely called the previous June 2025 meeting “covert and clandestine,” and said it was not advertised in local papers.
“They had a vote to amend the bylaws of the organization, which, the new amended bylaw would say that all future bylaws can be made just with the board’s votes,” Ely said, and this wasn’t posted online via facebook or the website and not announced in the weeks leading up to the meeting. Ely said Squier and Chidester knew that they purposely didn’t tell people about the June meeting.
“Historically speaking, it’s always been that a membership was $25, and a $40 family membership would cover a household of everyone over 18,” Ely said. The website for the association currently has a $25 donation option as the lowest amount. Squier said that option on the website is not backed by the bylaws or articles of incorporation.
“I see myself putting on the pressure necessary for them to follow state laws and state regulations for a professional librarianship,” Ely said. “And I see myself continuing to promote the ideals of what a library is supposed to be. And that is a place that is welcoming to all including the marginalized communities. And right now, they are not doing that.”
Ely was able to get her Master in Library Information and Sciences degree from PennWest Clarion in October 2025. The SCHS&FLA paid about $18,000 for her to get it, she said.
Ely said the FLA claimed there was going to be a $55,000 budget deficit in 2025. Close to Ely’s salary, which at the time was a little over $56,000. Ely said the way the board determined that was Dawn Augenti, on the finance committee, one of two commissioner’s reps on the board, went through the budget at the December finance committee meeting and crossed out the proposed golf tournament fundraiser.
“I thought, OK, she just wants to be realistic,” Ely said, but “not only did their refusal to do some of these fundraisers create the deficit — my position is required.” Ely said that by laying her off, the association jeopardized roughly $280,000 in state funding by not having a MILS degree holding librarian.
She said the district consultant, Michelle Legate, had offered to advertise the position for them through the library community, but the association would not give Legate the ability.
“There’s a lot of libraries in the state that don’t have someone with their masters degree, because they can’t afford them,” Squier said. “And so, the state also provides for you to ask for a waiver.” Last year, the association was granted a waiver. The requirement is that you have someone with a masters degree or someone working toward one, which qualifies a library as meeting best practice, Squier said. Lou Cella currently serves as interim librarian. He does not have a MLIS degree but a doctorate in sports sciences, Squier said. The library is seeking someone with the right degree.
Ely said she had identified two positions that could be eliminated, part-time jobs equaling about $16,000. That paired with the fundraisers identified would’ve made up the difference: the golf tournament, Blueberry fest, library lottery. These and maybe one more fundraiser would’ve closed the $55,000 deficit, but It would’ve been a tight year still, she said.
Ely said the claims that she mishandled finances were a smokescreen for the multiple disagreements on how the library should be run.
Ely also holds a master’s in public administration from Boise State, which was similar to nonprofit management and had a course in nonprofit and public sector budgeting. Ely said this experience made for a sufficient background in financial management. PennWest Clarion’s webpage on the MLIS degree does not say anything about training related to finance management.
Chidester said that roughly 60% of the association’s funds comes from Community Foundation of the Endless Mountains and the county, and 40% comes from fundraising.
“Our main focus has been financial stability – and so we have really worked at pulling in our spending and trying to really work on making money come in, and not exceeding what we’re spending,” Squier said. To help with this process, Squier acknowledged at the Saturday meeting that Chidester had been working all of 2025 without taking a paycheck to balance the association’s finances. Chidester said this is what had the association finishing in the black.
“Our new treasurer did a very thorough review of all the audits – back to 2018, there was a net loss of the association of almost $1 million, in losses, and decrease in assets,” Squier said. “The reason that has been happening is because of repeated annual spending that exceeded the income.”
Because of that, the association had to take money out of the endowments. 2020 was the only positive net year, he said.
“If you keep doing that, number one you’re gonna run out of money, and then you’re taking money out of part of what is making money,” Squier said. “This year we had interest of $108,000 from endowments. We took our no money out of the principal, we spent $25,000 of that interest. – so we were in the black, part of that is because Lorraine is working with no salary — we’re better than we were.”
At the end of 2024, the association was given another budget (late) and the budget was roughly $70,000 in the red. “There was a group of us then that just weren’t going to sign it and weren’t going to approve it,” Squier said, “and one of the board members moved to go into executive session— and then that’s when the decision was made to lay Christine Ely off.