This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Banking on her ability to open lines of dialogue, restore trust and mend the staff's bruised feelings, the Salt Lake City Library has named veteran Salt Lake County manager Linda Hamilton as its transitional director.
Hamilton served for five years as Mayor Peter Corroon's public works director and most recently as his chief administrative officer. Corroon's former Deputy Mayor Karen Okabe will serve as the library's deputy director.
"My plans are to open honest communication with the employees to try to bring the employees and board and the management together," Hamilton said moments after her appointment was approved in an 8-0 vote by the Library Board.
She will serve 75 percent of her time conducting library business and 25 percent assisting county government. Together with Okabe, the new team will earn a combined $160,000 salary.
Hamilton, who does not have a librarian background, will serve only as interim director, according to board president Kevin Werner. The Library Board will conduct a national search for a new full-time director and hopes to make a hire by late 2012. Werner says Hamilton will not be a candidate for that job.
Hamilton replaces Beth Elder, who resigned Oct. 28 in a hastily called meeting, saying it was time to remove herself from the "hot seat" after being a "lightning rod of controversy." Over three years, Elder's robotic management style and top-down policy changes alienated employees and the library's nonprofit fundraising arm to the point of dysfunction. She received a $25,000 lump-sum payment and six months pay with benefits as severance.
Werner says two candidates were interviewed as Elder's temporary replacement, noting Hamilton came "highly regarded from a number of quarters."
"The big thing is sort of rebuilding trust and opening communication," he said. Werner downplayed Hamilton's lack of a library background, saying programming, circulation and computer usage is not what the award-winning library lacks. "Our issues that we have are more organizational," he said. "That's what we recruited for."
Curt and sometimes prickly with the news media, Hamilton nonetheless comes to the job highly endorsed by Corroon.
"Linda Hamilton is a skilled administrator and influential leader for Salt Lake County," Corroon said in a statement late Thursday. "She's proven very capable at dealing with challenging circumstances. And I believe a time-sharing agreement, allowing her to spend a significant amount of her time working at the Salt Lake City Library is advantageous to both Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County."
Mark Alvarez, a Library Board member who frequently was critical of Elder and the library's loyalty to her in the face of a near mutiny, praised the move to hire Hamilton.
"She's a listener, not a micro manager," he said. "She'll let library employees shine the way they're supposed to shine."
Hamilton notes her first task will be to meet employees and managers to identify pressing problems. She also will oversee a performance audit conducted by the city designed to review the libraries personnel policies and procedures.
"I'm very optimistic and excited," said Mark Ewing, president of the Library Employee Organization. "I'm more optimistic than I have been in a while."