Monday closing moved in a conversation that three trustees missed. The director has a grid. The Friends group has a different memory of what was "agreed." The printers in the window still show the old hours.
A hours decision is a grid. People will keep arriving at the old time until someone records a choice. A wide talk about "access" is how the grid never lands.
Two grids, one vote
"I need A or B by Thursday 6pm: keep Mon–Thu 10–8 and Fri–Sat 10–5, or move to Mon–Thu 11–7 and Fri–Sat 10–4, starting the first Monday of next month." That is a decision. Both options in the sentence. Start date named.
A third idea — "open Sundays instead" — is a different proposal. Do not let it hitchhike. If someone has a real third grid, it can be option C if you write it as a grid, not a slogan.
Give the facts that decide it: door count by hour if you have it, the staffing you actually have, the lease or city rule if one names hours, what happens to the after-school table. Respect the reader's time. Trustees read this after their day job.
Label guesses. "Door count drops after 7" is a count if you have one. "Families will come Saturday morning instead" is a read. Keep those words apart.
Your lean: "I recommend the shorter evening. I keep 10–8 if two trustees say the after-school table cannot move."
Who votes, and when
If the board votes, write to the board, one trustee at a time. A Friends-of-the-library list is not the board. Staff may owe an opinion; that is a second briefing, labelled as opinion, and it does not replace the vote.
They need no account. The mail is the product. They reply from the mail or the page. You approve the wording. The director's assistant does not set hours as the board.
An honest deadline sits after people can read, not during the staff meeting you hope they already attended. "If I do not hear by Thursday 6pm, we keep the current grid and I reprint the door sign." A default that shortens hours on silence is a surprise to patrons.
No spreadsheet file. Write the two grids. If a fuller sheet lives in the board folder, name the folder.
If two trustees use different assistants, they still read one package.
What a sufficient vote is
"B." "A — keep the after-school hour." One line. Say that is enough.
Do not put a private nickname in the package. Use the name on the trustee list.
What this is not
It is not a campaign about the library's place in town. Hours are hours. If funding is the real subject, that is a different letter to the people who hold that budget, with a different ask.
It is not a substitute for the public meeting your bylaws require. Use the briefing so the meeting is a vote, not a first reading of the grid.
If your assistant already has both grids, let it draft the pair. You read the clocks. Then trustees can answer from a kitchen table.