By TimesLedger staff
The board of the Queens Public Library canceled a special meeting to consider a golden parachute for beleaguered President Thomas Galante Thursday after the borough president urged the trustees to postpone the session.
Borough President Melinda Katz issued a statement saying several members of the library board had called the special meeting to negotiate an $800,000 buyout package in taxpayer money.
“I am tried of calling the behavior of this board ‘an outrage,’” she said, pointing out that the members were proposing a resolution to renegotiate Galante’s contract. “This comes amidst three different investigations and several grand jury subpoenas.”
Galante has been expected to step down after months of rejecting calls that he should resign his post. At issue are allegations of fiscal mismanagement and revelations that he makes a $392,000 annual salary.
A spokeswoman for the library said the Thursday night meeting had been canceled.
Katz accused the board of trying “to beat the clock” by ramming through an amendment to Galante’s contract to circumvent a bill passed by the state Legislature to reform the trustees’ practices and terms. The measure, which had been awaiting Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s signature, would prohibit Galante from negotiating his own exit package when it became law in the next few weeks, Katz said.
But in a late development Thursday afternoon state Sen. Michael Gianaris (D-Astoria) announced that the governor had signed the bill, which becomes effective immediately.
“I am thankful for the way just about everyone in Queens came together to fight for these much-needed reforms,” Gianaris said.
Katz is clearly unhappy with the group of unidentified trustees.
“This is another painful example of how several of the trustees of this board have consistently blocked any sort of good governance or increased oversight reforms,” Katz said, referring to the push to give Galante an exit package.
Katz said these same trustees voted to block city Comptroller Scott Stringer from using his authority to audit parts of the library’s books. The borough president also said other trustees had asked that the special meeting be postponed.
In a statement issued after the governor acted, Katz thanked Cuomo “for moving quickly to sign the Queens Library reform bill into law today.”
She went on to say that the new law would greatly improve the oversight of the library, which is 85 percent funded by taxpayer dollars.
