Loutit District Library Board to offer director job to GH native

Grand Haven native John Martin will be offered the recently vacated Loutit District Library director job once the paperwork is approved by the library board's attorneys. The decision was made in a special meeting Tuesday night after the most-recent library director resigned just a week into the job. Library Board Trustee Roger Cotner, chairman of the board's Personnel Committee, said that the offer should be in Martin's hands by 5 p.m. today.

Becky Vargo

Grand Haven

Apr 21, 2011

Cotner said he called Martin — currently director of the public library in Oak Park, a suburb of Detroit — on Monday night to tell him about the unexpected opening and to see if he was still interested in the position.

“He said, ‘I am very interested,’” Cotner emphasized.

Martin was one of the three finalists interviewed for the Grand Haven library directorship earlier this year. The other finalist was Wisconsin resident Rose Frost.

L.J. Frank accepted the job in late February and started working at Loutit on April 11. He submitted his resignation by e-mail to library board members early Monday afternoon.

Martin will be offered a similar package as was given to Frank, Board President Sue Robertson said, with some changes in the wording proposed by attorneys. She said he will be given one week — until 5 p.m. April 27 — to respond to the offer.

The board is proposing a start date of May 23 in the offer to Martin.

To read more of this story, see today’s print edition of the Grand Haven Tribune.