On March 25, the Great Neck Library board voted unanimously to "accept the termination proposed by the law firm" of Philadelphia architectural firm, H2L2, and issue requests for proposals (RFPs) to find another firm to develop plans for a main renovation/expansion.

Although the letters that have gone back and forth between H2L2's law firm, Gough Law Associates, and the library's attorney, Kevin Seaman, have not been yet made public, it became clear at a building committee meeting prior to the full board meeting that negotiations were not going well. Evidently, the firm was unwilling to go forward until they had been paid a disputed $89,000 fee. The firm was also insisting on a definite timeline for certain benchmarks for which the board members felt that they could not commit.

While some board members stated a reluctance to overthrow decisions made by prior boards, and Linda Cohen reiterated that H2L2 had been viewed as "most creative" and less "cookie-cutter-like" in their design concepts, it became increasingly apparent that the firm was putting forth parameters that would be impossible to fulfill.

Evidently, the phrase "profoundly disappointed" had been used by Gough Associates in their letter to the board and certainly it became the phrase of the evening.

The fee that has been paid to H2L2 is $105,000 and the only salvageable results from that cost would be engineering/traffic reports as the actual plans are considered the "intellectual property" of the firm. The board has repeatedly asked for a breakdown for the $89,000 fee that only last year came to light. The firm has never presented the board with an actual accounting of everything that that fee covered.