Over the last week, Bradford County Commissioners unveiled plans to slash the Bradford County Library’s (BCL) budget by nearly 50% and fired its interim director. Now, the library’s citizens’ group is struggling to keep the library’s doors open.
Just four months after the Friends of the Bradford County Library celebrated winning the Pennsylvania Citizens for Better Libraries “Friends Group of the Year Award,” for saving the library, BCL is in crisis mode after commissioners fired interim director Rebecca Troup-Hodgdon on Monday.
Her termination shocked library supporters. County commissioners promised in December 2023 to not make any changes to the county library until they hired a library consultant.
It’s been nearly a year, and no consultant has been hired.
Concerned residents and Friends members considered taking legal action against county commissioners at an emergency meeting on Wednesday night. Recently elected Friends President Anna Jennings said the lawsuit would likely be over the Sunshine Act.
The state’s Sunshine Act requires government agencies to only take official action during open and public meetings.
If pursued, this would be the Friends’ second Sunshine Act case against the county. The last lawsuit was discontinued around Jan. 3, 2024, after the library secured 2024 funding. Commissioners had proposed in a secret meeting with library board members to close the library without a vote on Aug. 24, 2023.
Friends Vice President Crystal Sherrard said the group will put all of its finances into a potential lawsuit. There is “no reason to save a closed library,” she said.
Troup-Hodgdon’s husband, Cory Hodgdon, a member of the Friends, was at the meeting and declined to provide comment.
Meeting attendees discussed a number of ideas to save the library.
Kim Pitcher, who unsuccessfully ran for commissioner in 2023 and for state Senate against incumbent Gene Yaw earlier this month, suggested Commissioner Doug McLinko’s comments on a podcast as a potential reason for impeachment.
McLinko recently spoke on the Average Joe Show, a podcast hosted by Joe Carreon.
He said, “I am not anti-library. I’m anti-crap in libraries, I’ll tell you that much. [I] don’t want to see the drag queens and all this other stuff going on in our libraries … I’m also not going to fund nonsense that shouldn’t be done … with our children.”
Last Thursday’s commissioners meeting which covered the county budget instead erupted over McLinko’s comments on the podcast and included an argument about ‘gay penguins’.
Pitcher said she would start a petition to remove McLinko from office if she finds legal standing.
“I will pursue that and then we'll try to find out if there's grounds for – just in the terminology that was used – if there's any grounds for removal,” said Pitcher.
Now, without Troup-Hodgdon and a still unfilled position left after Former Director Jeff Singer’s resignation in 2023, library staff said they had to cut down hours, from 65 to 53 hours a week.
That cut brings the library close to commissioners’ proposal in their 2025 budget to reduce the library’s hours of operation to 47 hours a week. Their plan to slash library funding from $471,106 to $243,666 would also cut staffing from four full-time and three part-time employees to one full-time position and five part-time positions.
The proposal also creates a separate account for the Bookmobile, which would be allocated $45,000.
Attendees also talked at length about the future of the library and the greater Library System of Bradford County. BCL’s the system’s headquarters and changes will impact the county’s eight independent libraries.
Basil Bacorn, a member of the library system’s board and director of the Mather Memorial Library’s board in Ulster, said that separating the bookmobile from BCL doesn’t make sense for Bradford.
“The books come straight from the Bradford County Library collection. The library system does not have its own collection. The library system is just a team of nine libraries, kind of working together and with a kind of hodgepodge … [library system] to keep everyone on the same page in a very large county with a very large geography,” said Bacorn.
He added that the library system is considering becoming a nonprofit to enable the system to get more funding independently from the county.
Several attendees asked how they could help BCL in its transitional period and Friends members recommended they make donations to the library by becoming Friends members: $5 for individuals, $10 for families and $20 for businesses. They also asked supporters to write to the county commissioners and demand for the library to stay open.
One resident asked whether the library’s closure is a real possibility.
Jennings’ answer was grim.
“I've said a couple times at this meeting, anything's possible, and it's hard to know what is going to come next right now. Like I said earlier, we're prepared to keep fighting as long as we feasibly can, whether we run out of time or money first, I don't know, but we're going to do everything we can.”
The Friends of the Bradford County Library’s next meeting is on Dec. 2 at 6 p.m. at Luther Mills Community Church, 1307 Covered Bridge Road, Burlington. Members cannot meet at the library as BCL will be closed due to truncated hours due to cutbacks.
Commissioners plan to vote on their proposed 2025 budget at the next regular meeting on Dec. 12 at 10 a.m. at the Bradford County Courthouse, 301 Main St., Towanda.
