New director Lambert Shell takes over troubled Wyandanch library
Lambert Shell took over last week as Wyandanch Public Library director after previously serving in the same role at Roosevelt Public Library. Credit: Howard Simmons
A new director is at the helm of Wyandanch Public Library as the facility confronts a possible loss of public funding and handles an ongoing disciplinary case and $30 million claim involving a custodian who pleaded guilty last year to rape.
Library officials at a Monday night board meeting announced that Lambert Shell, who has been a facility consultant for several years, took over last week as director.
Shell, 53, of Queens, resigned as Roosevelt Public Library's director before taking the job. He told Newsday he wants to hire more quality staff, find better ways to communicate with the public and make facility improvements.
“As a consultant, you come here, you do something then you walk away,” he added. “Now when you’re here every day, it’s a different model.”
Shell follows former director Jessica Oelcher, who took the job in May before quitting in July on the same day the board's former president resigned.
Shell said working to help the library meet the state's minimum standards is his first goal following an October warning from state education officials that funding could be pulled because of the facility's failure to reach that benchmark.
His hire came after board members had passed a resolution Dec. 7 appointing him as of the next day at an annual salary of $135,000, only to say 30 minutes later they would rescind the resolution after he declined the position.
Shell at the time said the move surprised him because he hadn’t been in contract negotiations. But the board never rescinded the hire and library attorney Shawn Cullinane said Monday that Shell’s salary will remain the same.
Cullinane also said head custodian Kwaisi McCorvey, who the board suspended without pay effective Dec. 8, was put back on the payroll Jan. 8 but remains suspended.
Under state Civil Service law, an employee can only be suspended without pay for 30 days, according to Kevin Verbesey, director of the Suffolk Cooperative Library System.
Once notified of disciplinary charges, an employee can either resign, waive a hearing — at which point the employer can fire the individual — or contest the charges and a hearing will be held, the library official has said.
In September, McCorvey, 52, of Farmingdale, pleaded guilty to third-degree rape and child endangerment, admitting to raping a 16-year-old in North Amityville in 2016.
The board had suspended McCorvey with pay a week after his February arrest in that case. The board took away his salary about three months after his felony conviction and five months after the July filing of the $30 million legal claim.
The victim of the North Amityville rape alleged in the notice of claim, a lawsuit precursor, that McCorvey sexually abused her at the library between 2016 and 2018 when she was a minor. McCorvey isn't facing criminal charges related to that allegation.
A confidential memo showed the young woman reported to the library's director in 2021 that she had sexual encounters with McCorvey in the facility when she was 16, but McCorvey remained on the job, Newsday previously reported.
Cullinane referred questions on McCorvey's disciplinary case to outside counsel Noemi Baez, who didn't return requests for comment. McCorvey couldn't be reached.
Denise Bonilla has worked at Newsday since 2003 and covers the Town of Babylon, including the villages of Lindenhurst and Amityville.
Everything you need to know about Election Day and more from NewsdayTV
Everything you need to know about Election Day and more from NewsdayTV
