Dear Editor:
I’m from the old school of the Opelika three-man commission form of government back in the 1970s and 80s. when a million dollar blunder (like the recent one with the cable and fiber system leaving off scores of citizens) would have caused a recall election or expulsion of the three Commissioners and City Clerk at that time. That is not so today as little publicity has been explained about this major mistake.
In contrast, I found it rather interesting that your media has placed so much attention of the controversy about the Lewis Cooper Library Board vs. the Genealogical Society of East Alabama regarding the cataloging of the Library’s genealogical holdings.
At this point it is no need to recount all that has been written in the news media about this.
Suffice it to say, too much emphasis, in my opinion, has been placed on the minor controversy between these two entities. What most of the public does not know is there was an agreement signed by the then Library Board Chairman Mr. Dunson, Ms Delmas, Library Director and Mr. Brown, President of the Genealogical Society.
Seems to me rather strange, lacking interest of the present Library Board in their recent meeting of June 11, 2012, where only two Board members appeared, and five members of the Genealogical Society members appeared to discuss issues pertaining to both parties apparently pertaining to the dissolution of the agreement.
Based on information I have been supplied, I have recently learned that the Cooper Library Board is going to request the Genealogical Society to vacate the space they now have previously been approved to occupy. An agreement is on record for GSEA space.
The Genealogical Society has always promoted the efforts of the Cooper Library, contributing to the ancestry.com program for library users, even to the extent of contributing proceeds from the sale of GSEA books…namely the Heritage Book of Lee County, Alabama, which has been a best seller for both.
I trust the public will see through this controversy and join in a mutual agreeable conclusion, which has nothing to do with the controversial genealogical cataloging of which I decline to be involved..
– J. Newell Floyd
Opelika