Even More Concerned Now!

Last night I went to the second City of Santa Clarita Citizens of Public Library Advisory Committee. It was a without a doubt a complete train wreck. I don't know if I can get all my thoughts on the fly here in the remaining minutes of my lunch hour but I'll try. Dubberly is at least one step below competent. He attempts to fall on his folksy Gomer Pyle Gosh by golly style to cover it up. But I'm not fooled. He needs to retire and stop calling himself an Information Professional.
*He clearly did not look at the agenda. If he had then he would have know that the first item was to Distribute and Review Revised Schedule. At the end of the evening a concerned task force member asked about it. He asked "Didn't you already get it?" Inside voice responded "No, you have been here as long as everyone else--did you see it handed out?" Then a Santa Clarita Official came through with "It's on the table next you." The pile of paper that is hanging out there.
*He clearly does not make logically connections. He holds up a huge pile of Vision Statements in his hand and says everyone take yours out. Inside voice again: "If you are holding them, how can they possibly already have them.?"
*After everyone took a few minutes to introduce themselves, he had them all go to that evenings task which was to create SWOT--Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities and Threats--of the vision statements. I know what a SWOT is, I have used them in creating Plans for the Institute of Intensive English for accreditation. I know that they can be valuable. But for most people, they may not have run into this planning animal before, so a little background on what the tool is why the process is helpful would have been appreciated. This was evidenced by his instructions which essentially amounted to "OK, hop to it." Hop to what? There were several questions about what they were supposed to do and how they were supposed to do it. Eventually everyone got on task and completed it. No help from Mr. Dubberly thought. I suspect that those members that have had previous planning experience lead the others through it--making the others feel rather stupid for not knowing.
Meanwhile. My little group of 4 sat at the back and talked about the SWOT of what the City was doing. Michael Wilkerson of SaveSantaClaritaLibraries.org made a very significant comment: The threat is that we will end up with less but save $400K dollars. The threat is that we will end up with less and not save any money. The threat is that we will end up with less and it will actually cost more. I think that this is very well put.
My comment on the SWOT was that before the City proceeded with hiring LSSI they should have done due diligence and hired an independent--non LSSI affiliated--consultant to lay down the SWOT of leaving County Service and going with LSSI or building their own system from scratch. Oh, yes, they did that didn't they--IN 1999!!! The world is a very different place now that it was then. These things have a shelf life. If the City had done this crucial step then I might actually have some respect for the decision do go with LSSI--which I am morally opposed to.
I'm about half way finished but must go meet the day.