The St. Joseph County Public Library Board isn’t letting the South Bend School Board president’s new appointment take his seat. The library board passed a resolution Monday denying a request to seat Bill Sniadecki, saying that the seat is already filled.
The dispute goes back for months.
Ruth Warren was reappointed to the library board last year by outgoing school board president Stuart Green. But some of the current board members have argued that the appointment shouldn’t count, since Warren’s term hadn’t ended.
The library disagrees. “So, at that time, Dr. Green, as president of the school board, had the authority from the school board to make that appointment," said Attorney Dick Nussbaum, who is working with the library board on the issue. "It was effective at a time when the position on the library board would be vacant.”
The school board’s vote to formally remove Warren ended in a three-to-three tie back in June. That didn’t stop school board president Jeanette McCullough from announcing Sniadecki, the school board’s vice president, as the new library board member earlier this month.
Nussbaum says the proposed resolution to remove Warren didn’t meet legal standards, anyway. “State law provides the appointing authority, which in this case is the school board, to remove an appointee, but only under very limited circumstances," Nussbaum said. "And the fact that they don’t like who was appointed is not one of those circumstances."
School board attorney Pete Agostino says there are no further steps for that board to take. It’s now up to Sniadecki to decide if he wants to pursue the matter further. “There’s a procedure under state law for seeking a court determination, as to who has the right to that seat,” Agostino said.
Sniadecki told the South Bend Tribune that he isn’t planning on suing the library board.
The library board’s resolution lists a number of other reasons why Sniadecki shouldn’t be seated, noting that his oath of office didn’t come in the first 30 days of the library board term, as legally required, and that he has a sibling who works for the library. Sniadecki has disputed the resolution’s claims.
