The Freeholders have been trying to decide how to deal with residents who want to raise money for departments and agencies within county government. Like the Friends of the Hunterdon County Library, we're told, these folks seek to be "Friends" to parks, social services, the health department...

The Freeholders worry that some unscrupulous "Friends" could just pocket donations. So they've spent months — and thousands of dollars in legal fees — developing rules and regulations that would govern a board of trustees to charter such groups and oversee their activities. Now they may simply trash the idea.

Thank goodness.

The Freeholders sought to tightly control the board of trustees. If they didn't like a group or its goals, the bylaws would allow the trustees to revoke its charter — and confiscate whatever money it had collected, to be used as the Freeholders saw fit to benefit the intended county entity.

That makes us nervous. But the Freeholders could also seek to subsume the existing Friends of the Library — which runs the quite popular and successful annual spring book sale — under the same umbrella. That makes us really nervous.

The Freeholder board has wrangled with the county Library Commission over its budget, how it spends the dedicated library tax and how it staffs the libraries. Some consider this wrangling with the Library Commission a steady effort by the Freeholders to control its work. If the Friends of the Library were to be subject to the proposed "Friends" board, it could cede power to the Freeholders that we think ought to be in the hands of others.

In fact, we worry more about that than we do about folks trying to fleece us by pretending to be our Friends.

Originally published here.