Though it was not an item on the official agenda, many residents attended the June 8 council meeting to speak about the firing of longtime librarian Pansy Hundley.

 

Hundley, who had been the Rike Library librarian for 28 years, was dismissed last week for insubordination.

 

Resident Autumn Barton spoke first about the issue. Barton served on the city manger search committee but said she had not met City Manager John Moran. The new chain of command established by Moran concerned her, she said.

 

“It just seems like there is a lot of unrest in our city right now with the decisions that have been made with regard to personnel decisions or other decisions that have been made,” Barton said. “I ask you personally as a long-standing member of this community to go back and review some of the decisions that have been made and how they affect the city. Not just how they affect the day-to-day running of the business of the city but how they affect the morale and the citizens themselves.”

 

Hundley’s daughter, Suzanne Schuchardt, spoke in support of her mother and chastised the council.

 

“$56,000 ... that’s the amount of grants that she has procured for the library,” Schuchardt said. “Nobody told her to do this.”

 

Schuchardt said there are two grants – one for $14,000 and one for $8,000 – that the library will have to forfeit because no one has taken care of them in Hundley’s absence.

 

Schuchardt said some members of the council and Moran had not treated her mother with respect. She said after hearing her mother’s story and reading some memos to her from city hall, “I’m not so sure I wouldn’t have hung up on you either, Mr. Moran.

 

... There is a modicum of respect that is due to people. She’s a member of this town, she votes, she lives here and has made her living here. She deserves respect.”

 

At the end of life, “when we’re standing in front of our maker,” Schuchardt said, “it’s not going to be how well we played football or how much money we saved the city, it’s going to be how we treated people and how we have been treated by people. I ask you to reconsider this. I think you are hurting the town when you let her go.”

 

Shelly Haynes also asked the council to reconsider terminating Hundley’s employment.

 

“She taught me how to look for books when I was this tall and she got me through high school,” Haynes said. “Change is inevitable for progress, and I appreciate that and I agree with that. However, you can’t lose sight of what got you there. I think Pansy is an icon. There is a lot of history with Pansy, and I just ask you to reconsider.”

 

Phyllis Wilson, also a long-time Farmersville resident and a member of the Centennial Committee, complimented Hundley’s work ethic and moral character.

 

“Pansy worked just as diligently as I did for Old Time Saturday because it directly benefitted the library and civic center. She has worked at the civic center for years, since it was such an important part of our community,” Wilson said. “We will never find another woman as honest or  as moral as she is.”

 

Angie Rios said Hundley is an outstanding resource about and for the community, citing the 2009 Citizen of the Year award bestowed on her.

 

“She goes above and beyond for everyone and everything here,” Rios said. “She’s an outstanding citizen who sets an example for young people [about] what it means to be an adult, and her morals consistently show in everything she does. I ask you to reconsider this decision because it would make a permanent mark on Farmersville and it would be a bad one.”

 

Centennial Committee Chairman Charlie Whitaker also addressed the council about Hundley’s worth to the city.

 

“I’ve worked with Pansy for 28 years, and it’s amazing to see what she has done with this library,” he said.

 

He said the other speakers’ comments were true and  “there are many, many more things that have not been said that she’s very deserving of” but he acknowledged that city staff “has a right to do what they did.”

 

The situation however, Whitaker said, has gotten “completely out of hand.”

 

“It did not have to end like this or I hope it’s not ended,” he said. “Pansy has been working in that place for 28 years, most of that time without any supervision, without a boss, without someone to tell her what to do and when to do it or how to do it. She’s taken ownership of the place, and she’s turned it into an amazing library.”

 

According to Whitaker, the issue that came up had to do with air conditioning. Hundley told him about the failure of one of the building’s AC units.

 

“Many issues have came up over the years that Pansy has pointed out to me,” he said.

 

As chair of the Old Time Saturday/Centennial Committee, he said he and Hundley worked together often. “We spent money on that building, and we actually gave it to the city,” he said of the Centennial Committee. “We were paying her salary at one point and she became a city employee. She took ownership of that thing, and she had to for it to reach the level that it has now.” 

He said many of the library’s repairs and upgrades have been made or funded by the Centennial Committee.

 

“Whatever it needed we were the ones that paid it, and the air conditioners were put in there without the city even knowing about it,” Whitaker said. “So there were a lot of things that went on up there without the city even knowing about it.”

 

His conversation with Hundley “shouldn’t have even gotten to” the city manager, Whitaker said. “That was between Pansy and me,” he said.

 

Whitaker acknowledged that the city manager has the right to hire and fire employees but said he also needs “to have some compassion and some common sense about how these things happen.”

 

While both Hundley and Moran are responsible for the current situation, Whitaker said there has been more discontent in Farmersville “in the last six months than there have been in the past 30 years.”

 

“Something’s happening, something’s not smooth,” he said. “I regret what’s happening with Pansy and the library and John and the whole thing. I hope there are some reconsideration made.”

 

Charles Carrington told the council without the Centennial Committee, there probably wouldn’t be a librarian.

 

“For years and years, everything that took place over there, the Centennial Committee is the one that voted and appropriated the funds and all that or it wouldn’t have gotten done,” he said. “I think they need to be in the loop. They’ve spent a lot of money and effort over there.”

 

Also speaking in support of Hundley were Hope Hayes, Glenn Rose and Woody Wright.

 

Wright manages the Farmersville Senior Center. She said Hundley “is the Farmersville library.”

 

Charles Cassidy, a 30-year Farmersville resident and teacher, said his students rely on Hundley.

 

“Pansy has had an influence over many of my students,” he said. “She has been responsible for helping these students get through to college. They won’t say this, but her reports in the paper have helped those kids.”

 

Cassidy complimented Moran but urged him to communicate with community members.

 

“In a community like ours, we talk,” he said. “... You are a great man. We appreciate the work that you do, the job that you represent, but I see some communication problems that can be overcome.”

 

Homeschoolers also rely on Hundley, according to resident Rex Thain.

 

“We’ve got seven kids, and we did home-school them all, so they didn’t get to do school activities, but they did do things at the library,” Thain said. 

 

Thain said the problem stems from leadership.  “The previous city council passed an ordinance that gave the city manager full control over hiring and firing city employees without the ability to go before the city council and express grievance,” he said.   

Moran “did not overstep the bounds that the previous council set for him” but there is a difference between business and city government, Thain said.

 

In a privately owned business, the owner has the power to do as he pleases and must live with the consequences, Thain said; it’s different for a community.

 

“It belongs to all of the people. It doesn’t belong to the city manager,” he said. “Giving him the authority to have total control over hiring and firing employees without a grievance board of some kind is inappropriate.”

 

Thain asked the council “to back up and rethink this.”

 

“I agree we need to change some things; I agree we need to improve things throughout the city,” he said. “We do that by building on our assets, not by ripping them up by the roots and throwing them out with the trash. If we’re not careful, we’re going to continue to rip the fabric of this community to pieces, and we’ll just be a dot on the road, and Farmersville won’t be what Farmersville was.”

 

In addition to the public support at the council meeting, a Facebook group called “We support Pansy Hundley” has been created. 

 

 

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