BCL: Library insurer pays $450,000
for theft/embezzlement claim
November 28, 2014
By Peggy Kelly
Santa Paula News
The insurer for Blanchard Community Library has paid a claim of theft/embezzlement, putting $450,000 back in library coffers.
Board Chairwoman Linda Spink announced the news that the insurer has paid the claim - the maximum the library could recover under the guidelines of the policy - at Tuesday’s Board of Trustees meeting.
Spink read from a prepared statement that, “Blanchard Community Library maintained an insurance policy that covered the Library in the event of theft or embezzlement.
“As a result of investigations conducted by forensic investigators and the insurance company’s own independent investigators, the library has received the sum of $450,000 in insurance proceeds, which is the Library’s policy limit. The Library will continue to pursue any loss in excess of policy limits.”
The District Attorney’s Office, she added, “Is continuing with its own separate investigation.”
The Ventura County District Attorney’s Office confirmed in August 2013 that it had launched an investigation the previous month into $750,000 in financial irregularities, funds that the library announced appeared to be missing.
At that time, Spink said BCL attorneys and “other forensic experts” were evaluating the situation and efforts would be made to recover “any and all losses that may exist... appropriate law-enforcement agencies had been advised of the matter and are handling their own separate investigations.”
In April 2013 after months of rising public criticism and contentious meetings that had started a year previously, the BCL Board fired Librarian Dan Robles.
The librarian had been employed by BCL for more than 30 years, starting as a teenage volunteer.
Sometime in May 2013, the library no longer employed bookkeeper Tammy Ferguson, who joined BCL in 1993.
This year in February Robles filed a lawsuit against the Board of Trustees alleging that he was wrongfully terminated; BCL’s attorney filed a response claiming trustees were justified in letting Robles go.
Robles was making more than $70,000 annually plus benefits according to the complaint his attorney, Leslie McAdam of Ferguson, Case, Orr, Patterson, filed in Ventura County Superior Court.
The lawsuit claims breach of contract and wrongful termination on the part of the board.
His suit seeks a minimum of $50,000 plus interest for lost wages and benefits as well as attorney’s costs.
The library’s attorney, Nancy Kierstyn Schreiner, of Anderson Kill, filed a response to Robles’ complaint noting that trustees’ terminated Robles because he engaged in “conduct, during work hours and using library equipment, that was improper and wasteful of library/public resources.”
Among the alleged allegations, the response claimed Robles breached fiduciary duties, “thereby causing Blanchard to sustain damages.”
At the October 28 BCL Board meeting there was a report on the $450,000 received from the insurer that noted more than $381,000 remained; the report noted that expenditures culled from the payment paid for outstanding investigative and attorney fees.
