Library Administrators Still Discriminate,
Say Fulton County Investigators
Updated August 20, 2003
Fulton County's Office of Equal Employment Opportunity (OEEO) has
determined that AFPL library administrators continue to engage in illegal
discrimination against library employees.
The library system's trustees met August 7th in a specially-called,
closed meeting to discuss OEEO's recommendations about personnel
decisions involving two library employees, Mary Starck and Maureen
Kelly. OEEO's investigations confirmed Starck's and Kelly's allegations that
after they and several other employees had successfully
sued the library for race discrimination, library administrators had,
in separate instances, again discriminated against them because of
their race. The fact that Starck and Kelly are both plaintiffs in a
lawsuit brought against the library makes the library liable for illegally
retaliating against these employees as well as illegally discriminating
against them.
The latest incidents have been reported by the local newspaper as well
as by Library Journal.
It's clear from the media stories' quotations from OEEO documents
that AFPL administrators apparently have learned nothing from the $17
million lawsuit they lost last January, and whose verdicts and damage
awards an appeals court affirmed in June. Instead of accepting the
fact that discriminating against its employees on the basis of race is
illegal, AFPL administrators, by further discriminating against
employees who successfully sued them for discrimination, have exposed
themselves--and the trustees, and Fulton County government, and,
ultimately, Fulton County taxpayers--to two further potential federal
lawsuits. The fact that additional EEO complaints filed by other library employees
are being investigated means that other individuals may decide to
pursue lawsuits against the library system if the county's
investigations in their cases turn out to be as damning as the
investigations into Starck's and Kelly's allegations.
It's difficult to see how the trustees' August 7th response to the OEEO's
recommendations will prevent more lawsuits against the library system,
as their response did not include immediately dismissing the
administrators involved in these latest discrimination incidents.
As usual, all the powers that be are denying responsibility for the
illegal incidents involving Starck and Kelly. Library Director Mary
Kaye Hooker claims these incidents were Deputy Director Carolyn
Garnes's fault, Garnes is claiming Hooker was also implicated, and
Board of Trustees Chair Annette Steed claims the Board didn't know
what it was doing when it approved the library administration's latest
discriminatory personnel actions. Isn't it odd how these illegal
personnel actions just seem to keep happening all by themselves?
One thing's for certain: most library employees--and certainly most
taxpayers--want the Board to remove from the library payroll
any administrator found to have instigated or approved illegal
discrimination or illegal retaliation against any library employee,
and begin searching for some administrators who can operate the
library system without resorting to illegal activities.
Read the August 8th Atlanta Journal-Constitution story.
Deputy Director Carolyn Garnes Abruptly Retires
Posted September 23, 2003
Read the memo announcing Garnes's retirement.
Read reactions to the memo from:
Some People Just Won't Go Away...
Posted March 14, 2005
Alert AFPLWATCH reader "T.E. Lawrence" noticed that, according to the
March issue of American Libraries [page 6, column 3], ex-AFPL
Deputy Director Carolyn Garnes is running as a petition candidate for ALA
Council.
Can anyone imagine the American Library Association actually taking
advice from this person? We certainly hope that not a penny of our
ALA dues end up paying Garnes' travel expenses to council conclaves in
Chicago.
ALA Member Alert!
Postscript to Recent Garnes Sighting
Posted April 19, 2005
Regular readers of the "LibraryLand"
section of AFPLWATCH will recall that we recently
warned American Library Association members that former AFPL "Depuddy
Dawg" Carolyn Garnes was running for another term on ALA Council.
One of those readers checked out
Garnes' bio on ALA's web site (Garnes' bio is #27). Among other things
(and in language a bit too harsh for posting to AFPLWATCH), our correspondent
noted the irony of Garnes' stated current occupation: "Literacy/Reading
Consultant."
That rather scary claim reminded us of all those Agency Meetings that
Garnes littered with her non-stop malapropisms, and it reminded us too
of the nineteen spelling, grammatical, or typographical errors Garnes
managed to make in a one-paragraph email she once sent to
her colleague Brian Williams before Williams' abrupt departure as AFPL's
Development Director. (Garnes sent copies of the message to others, which
is how AFPLWATCH eventually got one. Read the email.)
Moving right along through Garnes' ALA bio, one comes upon Garnes' comment
about the importance of mentoring other librarians. Our correspondent's
(slightly edited) comment:
Garnes did her best while at AFPL to promote her protégés, that’s
for sure, but at the expense of anyone who did not share the
characteristics of her favored demographic target group. "Selective
Mentoring" is what Garnes really values, which the rest of the world
defines as favoritism, nepotism, & cronyism - or just plain old
corruption. The end result: the formation at AFPL of what was known as
the "East Point Mafia," an unbroken line of incompetence, malfeasance,
and unethical behavior that made AFPL what we are today. Let us pray
this delusional woman, who has caused enough havoc and heartache for
one lifetime in librarianship, is not re-elected.
AFPLWATCH readers who are also members of ALA can do more than pray: they
can vote for some of the 90 candidates other than Carolyn Garnes who are
running for ALA Council. But voters will have to move quickly: the
deadline for voting is April 22nd.
Update to ALA Member Alert
Garnes Loses ALA Council Re-election Bid
Posted May 3, 2005
ALA members have chosen not to re-elect former AFPL Deputy Director
Carolyn Garnes to the association's governing body.
ALA announced the results of its 2005 Council elections
yesterday.
Although 1,472 ALA members voted for Garnes, she did not receive enough
votes to win another seat on the Council. (This year, with 10,490 ballots
cast in the Council elections and 91 candidates running for the 36 vacant
seats, those who won seats garnered at least 2,025 votes.)
Only 7 of the 91 candidates running for ALA Council this year got fewer votes than
Garnes.
Garnes Sighting
Posted November 21, 2005
Presumably invited by her friend and protege Doris Jackson (who still works
at AFPL), the library system's former deputy director Carolyn Garnes
appeared on a panel at the Ashley Bryan festival held earlier this month at
the Central Library. See
for yourself.
We hope no county tax dollars (in the form of an honorarium for
serving on this library-sponsored program) made their way into Garnes' hands....
Latest Garnes Sighting(s)
Posted March 20, 2006
Undaunted by
her failure to be re-elected last year to ALA Council, ex-Deputy
Director Carolyn Garnes has joined two dozen others from around the country
who petitioned ALA to have their names added to the Council ballot this year.
Garnes
describes herself to ALA voters as someone whose tenure at AFPL not
only "improved customer service" and "increased usage" but resulted in
better "staff morale"! Garnes omits from her resume that she abruptly resigned from AFPL
in the wake of a federal lawsuit
filed by two AFPL employees. And although she mentions a certificate
of commendation given to her by a former AFPL director, Garnes leaves out
the part of her career that involved being terminated as a library employee;
it was later, after getting reinstated (another interesting story she
doesn't refer to), that Garnes was around to be chosen as Deputy Director
by former library board chair (and friend of Garnes and, later, a plaintiff
in a previous federal lawsuit)
William McClure.
Garnes lists her current position as a "retired/literacy and reading
consultant [in] Fairburn, Georgia." Her protégé (and Garnes' former
administrative assistant) Michelle Carnes is manager of AFPL's Fairburn
Branch, and AFPLWATCH has heard that Garnes has been hanging out at the
Fairburn Branch quite a bit lately. So that may explain Garnes' "Fairburn"
reference. Interestingly, Garnes doesn't specify in her resume for ALA
whether she is serving as a "volunteer" consultant, or, God forbid, is
actually being paid for her services.
Garnes' literacy credentials are also unclear, but
an example of her writing skills from her disastrous tenure as AFPL
Deputy Director bodes ill for whoever she's being allowed to advise - and
for ALA if its voting members elect Garnes again to its Council.
The biggest surprise of all, though, is that Garnes was able to somehow
obtain 25 ALA members' signatures to qualify for the 2006 Council ballot.
Voting for ALA Councilors began last week and ends April 24th. Voting
results will be announced May 1st.
Garnes Loses ALA Council Election Bid
Posted May 2, 2006; postscript added May 3, 2006
For the second year in a row, former AFPL Deputy Director Carolyn Garnes
has been unsuccessful in a run for a seat on the American Library Association's
Executive Council.
ALA posted the names of its new council members
yesterday.
Garnes had petitioned
for a three-year term as an At-Large Councilor.
May 3rd Update: According to the vote tallies
posted by various bloggers (such as
Michael Gorick), almost 3,000 ALA members voted for Garnes (from a
slate of 71 candidates). To have won a seat on the Council she would've
needed another 303 votes beyond the 2,914 she received. The candidates with
the most votes (the ones who were elected) received between 4,769 and 3,216
votes. Fifty-four of the candidates got more votes than Garnes; only 16
candidates got fewer votes than she did.
Latest Garnes Sighting
Posted October 26, 2006
From
a September 12th posting to the Librarians of Color blog:
The first joint conference of Librarians of Color will be October 11 - 15,
2006 in Dallas Texas. The theme is "Gathering at the Waters, Embracing Our
Spirits, Telling Our Stories."
There will be a session titled Career Growth for Libraians of Color: Issues
and Strategies. Speakers at this session include Doris Jackson, Carolyn
Garnes and Brenda Hunter. The three former librarians in various capacities
formed a mentoring group for young African American professionals.
From the
conference program:
Mentoring the Next Generation
OCTOBER 14, 2006 2:00PM-3:30PM
Learn how two retired librarians and a library administrator launched a mentoring group that helped mentees receive
promotional opportunities and job enhancement. Hear from a human resources specialist who advised the group and
from several mentees, who will share their experiences.
Another Garnes Sighting
Posted February 6, 2007
Whatever else she may be doing these days behind the scenes to
"mentor" current AFPL employees, ex-Deputy Director Carolyn Garnes is
also apparently employed by the Fulton County Board of Education. The
Board's
website lists Garnes as a media specialist at Fulton County's S.L.
Lewis Elementary School in College Park.
Once Again, Garnes Trying to Win a Seat on ALA Council
Posted March 16, 2007
Yesterday, members of the American Library Association were invited to
begin casting their ballots for ALA's next set of officers and its governing body,
the ALA Council. Among the candidates for ALA's Councilors-at-Large is former
AFPL deputy director Carolyn Garnes.
Having served one three-year term on ALA's Council beginning in 2002, this
is Garnes' third attempt to land a second term. She failed to win a Councilor-at-Large
seat in 2005,
and failed again in 2006.
You can read Garnes's listing of her qualifications and her "statement of
professional concerns" here (scroll to page 15).
You can read everything AFPLWATCH has posted about Carolyn Garnes here.
What makes this year's Council elections particularly interesting for
current and former AFPL staff is the fact that one of the individuals
Garnes is competing with for a Council seat is AFPL director John Szabo.
Because there are numerous vacant Councilor-at-Large seats and the vacant
seats go to the top vote-getters, one possible outcome of the election
would be that both Szabo and Garnes could end up serving on the Council
together.
ALA members have until April 24th to cast their ballots, and the individuals
elected will be announced May 1st.
Garnes Fails at Third Bid for ALA Council
Posted May 3, 2007
Former AFPL Deputy Director Carolyn Garnes,
who had petitioned the members of the American Library Association
again this year
for election to the governing body of the American Library Association, did
not obtain enough votes to win a seat.
Garnes served one term on Council beginning in 2002. This was Garnes’ third
consecutive post-retirement attempt to reclaim a place on Council. Although 2,368 ALA members
voted for Garnes this year from a field of 95 candidates, Garnes was 489
votes shy of obtaining one of the 33 vacant Council seats.
Garnes' standing in the elections during her three post-retirement runs
for Council:
| |
# Votes Rec'd |
# Votes Short |
| 2005 |
1,472 |
553 |
| 2006 |
2,914 |
303 |
| 2007 |
2,368 |
489 |
Current AFPL Director John Szabo, who also ran for Council this year, also
failed to be elected, by a margin of 140 votes.
Former Gwinnett County Public Library Director Jo Ann Pinder ran for ALA
Treasurer, but a California-based candidate beat her by a slim margin (178
votes).
Approximately one-fourth of ALA’s 64,000+ members (or 14,560 people) voted
in this year’s elections.
The 2007 elections vote tally can be viewed at
ALA's website. ALA member Gary Klein has posted an interesting analysis of the
voting results
here.
Garnes Still Apparently Working for County School Board
Posted November 12, 2008
A recent Googling of "Carolyn Garnes" brought up Garnes' name on a list of media specialists for the Fulton County
Board of Education. The
document lists ex-Deputy AFPL Library Director Garnes as the 2008-2009 media specialist Oak Knoll Elementary School.
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