A wave of change is coming and staff can study to swim or not — Elmwood Public Library Board President Chris Pesko, December 2022*
The December 2022 minutes** of the Elmwood Public Library Board assembly (IL) are in contrast to any public library assembly minutes you’ve possible seen. Though public remark was not lengthy, the minutes point out excessive discontent taking place throughout the partitions of the library.
And, maybe, the library’s promoting over 1/5 of their positions as open–all of that are full-time, skilled and managerial positions–additionally sheds mild on what seems to be a Board wanting to deprofessionalize the ability whereas implementing an anti-DEI, anti-inclusive tradition in order to “align” with the wants of the group.
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Elmwood Park is an internal Chicago suburb. A traditionally Italian group, over the previous few many years, the demographics of the group of almost 25,000 has shifted. The 2020 census confirmed 35% of the group included these of Hispanic/Latine heritage, in addition to roughly 28% of these in the group who establish as bi or multiracial. Over 1 / 4 of residents have been born outdoors of the United States as of 2020.
In December 2021, Elmwood Park Public Library (EPPL) director Tiffany Verzani resigned from her place***. Verzani is a profession librarian, who labored her method from a youngsters’s and teenage librarian to director at EPPL, and has since taken on the function of Executive Director at one other suburban Chicago library. During her tenure at EPPL, she labored to make sure personnel insurance policies helped assist employees. The minutes from the Bylaws, Goals, Policy & Personnel Committee present Verzani advocating for higher break day insurance policies for non-librarian and managerial employees, who regardless of their years on the job, nonetheless solely obtain 2 weeks paid break day per calendar yr. Other libraries in the world not solely pay higher, however they provide extra sturdy advantages to employees. Board President Chris Pesko responded, suggesting that evaluating the insurance policies of EPPL to others was not needed, as he believed the library supplied sufficient. At that assembly, the Board agreed to rising the variety of floating holidays given to library employees by one, which, regardless of the rise, didn’t stay on par with the remainder of Village worker advantages.
Upon Verzani’s departure, Jason Stuhlmann turned interim director. The first order of enterprise, as directed to him from the Library Board? Put Christmas bushes up in the entrance foyer. Three bushes, in truth. The Board had been set on this taking place for years, regardless of the actual fact the choice not to have Christmas bushes in the library was a results of understanding how they don’t seem to be inclusive to the entire group. At the identical assembly, the Board made it clear any and all communication with the library wanted to undergo them first.
The January 2022 Board Meeting started with a presentation from Deno Andrews, a retired Oak Park Trustee and supervisor of “Amari LLC” (which has no web site or social media presence) who highlighted key items of strategic planning. These included “the dangers of data collection,” “the importance of population segmentation and representation,” and “statistically significant sampling size.” The objective of this was to debate why knowledge assortment is vital for a library, although the framing of it makes clear that Pesko’s objective for this visitor presentation–paid for by the taxpayers–was to orient the library’s operation like a enterprise, moderately than as a authorities nonprofit service entity.
After the presentation, President Pesko requested the appearing director to seek out out when the library’s show coverage was final up to date.
Slowly however certainly, the Board continued to take extra management over the library following Verzani’s departure. The function of the general public library board in Illinois is one in every of advocacy; those that function trustees should put the very best pursuits of the library first, they usually should serve in a capability that ensures legal guidelines are adopted. Trustees have a job in hiring the director of a library, working with the director as assist to make sure the library’s success, and to be one voice amongst these serving on the entire board to signify the very best pursuits of the group. Library boards do NOT have authority on the day-to-day operations of the library.
So in May 2022, when the Board demanded to know each emptiness and departure throughout the library in order to find out how new staff would apply, be screened, and be evaluated, they overstepped their authority.
This was solely a continuation–and it was additionally the start of a fair tighter grip on the library by the board.
Emails between Board President Pesko and appearing director Stuhlmann reveal dialogue of each the forthcoming Director Job Search, but additionally subsequent skilled roles that might have to be stuffed in the library.
The above got here from a Freedom of Information Request (FOIA) to have a look at discussions of the Director place, which is why the e-mail chain just isn’t full. But take a look at the third bullet level beneath part two: Stuhlmann, knowledgeable librarian working as an interim director, clarifies to the board president that the upcoming function is knowledgeable one. That certainly, a librarian with a level is what the job entails, not simply an undergraduate diploma, and he clarifies why that is.
Pesko’s response is robust–certainly, requiring a level might hamper the candidates who apply. But put a pin in this–we’ll come again up to now about range, fairness, and inclusion shortly.
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At the June assembly, the Board accepted the rent of a circulation assistant and shelver and a circulation affiliate evening shift supervisor (who was an inner rent). That night could be the primary Executive Session held to debate the seek for a brand new library director. The 20 minute session decided who could be on the search committee for the director: President Chris Pesko, together with trustees Elsa Volpe and Dee Gordon, Marisa Santangelo, and SK Narayan.
The July assembly included not solely extra dialogue of hiring for positions throughout the library, however the coverage laid out in May was amended: now the Board needed to see the resumes of each applicant employed for a place, an inventory of each candidate who was interviewed, and notes as to why they weren’t employed. The description for the job of Adult Services Program Coordinator was additionally up to date by Pesko. What that replace included just isn’t recognized, apart from it was to “flip minimum qualifications.” Is this in reference to the job that required an MLS however now wouldn’t?
But the largest be aware from the July assembly notes is that the Director Search Committee was able to publish their job. Where would they publish it? The reply is Indeed.com, the place they needed to create an account.
The commercial was not accepted for distribution elsewhere till August, when it was pushed to LinkedIn and Facebook. You can discover the LinkedIn place commercial right here. The phrase “Board” is used 13 occasions in the outline of the job; “community” a mere eight, 9 occasions if you happen to embrace “residents.”
We are searching for a person with an entrepreneurial spirit that makes use of essential considering and fact-based, knowledge pushed ideas to make sure evolving wants are met. This particular person will marry service primarily based company ideas to library features to novate the way in which our library serves the group, whereas working inside a regulatory and finances framework with a watch on worth to the patron.
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According to data obtained through FOIA, there have been 26 purposes for the place over the course of its opening. Of these, eight have been invited to interview for the function. Interviews passed off between September 12–three days earlier than the month-to-month board assembly–and November 1. There was a single spherical of interviews for every candidate, performed through Zoom. That means candidates by no means met contained in the library, by no means met the employees they’d be supervising, and by no means met the committee face-to-face. This just isn’t normal follow for an entry degree librarian job, and it actually just isn’t regular for the chief government of a library.
Recall the Director Search Committee had 5 board members on it. But what follows exhibits who from the board attended every of these single interviews. Note that the appearing director was not current at any of the interviews.
In one occasion, solely the Board President performed the interview. Which candidates interviewed on which dates is unknown, however the taking part in subject was by no means even from the beginning: your complete committee didn’t make it to many of the interviews.
One look on the questions and steerage developed for the director interview present exactly the kind of candidate the Board sought to rent. Indeed, these questions embrace bullet factors beneath them for the interviewers to verify for. The supreme candidate could be impartial like Switzerland in all they provide and they might play second fiddle to the course of the library board in all resolution making. There was no want for library expertise nor a library diploma, and because the December 2022 minutes be aware, President Pesko emphasised that the board was involved with two issues: somebody who might handle a 1.7 million greenback finances and a employees of roughly 25 folks.
Indeed, the best candidate wouldn’t work to “change the complexion” of the library however work to protect neutrality–in different phrases, whiteness.
(Note that underneath the steerage, “we do not do things because ‘other libraries do them’” however simply a few pages up, one other random library is cited for instance for what the library ought to contemplate doing).
According to Pesko, many of the degreed librarian candidates “could not answer the questions provided in the interview process.” Recall, this course of was not solely a single Zoom interview, however it didn’t have any consistency with who was doing the interviewing. What questions might a number of expert, educated, and skilled administrative-level librarians not reply?
Perhaps the reply is they might not be “neutral.” That they might not quit their expertise, information, and experience to a Board who doesn’t spend their days contained in the library and serving the entire group.
A board with deep ties to different village officers and companies that might profit from their management over the library.
Three days after the ultimate interview, November 4, an e mail from Board President Pesko landed in the inboxes of the remainder of the Board. The topic: “Urgent: Approval for Verbal Offer.”
Board members accepted shortly, together with “ok with me” as a response from Santangelo. This occurred outdoors of any official assembly, both from the hiring committee or the Board as a complete, and as quickly as Pesko obtained approval, he started the official onboarding course of.
At the November 2022 board assembly, held November 17, the Board “officially” employed Michael Consiglio. His begin day was November 18, the subsequent day. Library employees didn’t know in regards to the hiring resolution, nor in regards to the begin date of their new director, till after that board assembly.
So once they walked into work the subsequent day, they have been hit with a brand new boss.
It might be of little shock at this level to study that the employed director, Michael Consiglio, just isn’t a degreed librarian and he has no expertise in library work in any way. He’s additionally a straight white man. What’s attention-grabbing about that is that it appears to run counter to the very argument President Pesko made earlier in 2022 that range, inclusion, and fairness have been key components in writing and interviewing for a place. None of these facets utilized to the hiring course of, and, regardless of being one of the numerous communities in the Chicago suburbs, although actually, hiring a white man with no expertise to do the job each permits the Board to actually be the director and his hiring ensures that the “complexion” of the library doesn’t change.
Moreover, as Trustee Fosco said, the Board didn’t care about expertise. In truth, he’d moderately have somebody off the road with demonstrated talents over somebody with a level with out expertise. Of those he has employed, “the ones with street smarts work out best,” since “common sense” is extra useful than training.
More capable of be railroaded, in different phrases.
Who is Consiglio, although, and why was he the candidate employed for the place? According to his LinkedIn profile, Consiglio is the previous Finance Manager for the Village of Bensenville, the place he labored from February 2009 till March 2010. After departing that village, he labored as a “consultant” to Marotta & Associates.
Marotta & Associates, an accounting agency owned by the brother-in-law of Elmwood Park Village President Angelo “Skip” Saviano.
Marotta & Associates, an accounting agency employed to direct library funds in early 2023.
Consiglio has no library expertise, has shifted the supposed date for when he’ll “enroll” in an MLS program a number of occasions by his tenure to this point, and he has not been employed full-time by a corporation since 2010.
His first order of enterprise? Ensure that the police really feel snug in the library. Curiously, safety was additionally a primary order of enterprise for the Board upon the Verzani’s departure–at the moment, the board needed to arm their safety and provides them police uniforms. To defend them, I assume, from the “changing complexion” of the library? To be Switzerland in all they provide? To guarantee that staff don’t publish Black Lives Matter contained in the library?
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In some ways, what is occurring at EPPL mirrors what has been taking place just some miles north on the Niles Public Library, the place the board seized management of the library to ram their agenda in with out consequence or pushback. EPPL’s Board has remained pretty unchanged during the last a number of election cycles, however with the rise of conservatism throughout the nation and in the Chicago suburbs, the ability as soon as held by white males has been slowing receding as the range, fairness, and inclusion applications guarantee extra entry to training, expertise, and jobs for folks of the worldwide majority.
Consiglio’s tenure as director could have made the place extra welcoming for police and he could discover himself the primary public library director to put in a photograph ID coverage to require patrons to indicate picture identification in order to entry supplies and companies; that is, in fact, the antithesis of the general public library. It is instillation of a police state.
Michael Consiglio has quite a few monetary ties to the town and significantly those that work for the Village of Elmwood Park. In addition to the unethical method in which he was employed, the actual fact he “consulted” for a agency owned by the Village President’s brother in regulation–and that’s being employed because the library’s monetary agency–ought to increase purple flags.
Village President Skip Saviano, who most just lately ran on the “Citizens United Party of Elmwood Park”/”People’s Choice Party of Elmwood Park” ticket, did so with a slate of others. And who could be amongst his operating mates? None apart from Gina Pesko, spouse of Chris Pesko, president of the Library Board.
Gina Pesko, who lists among the many issues she publicly likes on Facebook the push towards “Illegal Immigration” and the “Young America’s Foundation, ” one of many foremost teams recruiting younger folks to right-wing, nationalist conservatism.
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It ought to be no shock that employees have been leaving. The library has been underneath siege for a number of years from the board, however till the board had the ability to rent somebody from outdoors the library world, to rent somebody with monetary and private ties to others on the board and on the Village board, they haven’t had the express authority to take action. Now, they’ve performed simply that.
Library board elections are coming in April in Illinois, and a number of other of the seats for the EPPL board are up for reelection, together with Pesko’s. The roster of candidates can be found through the Cook County Clerk’s workplace. Four incumbents are on the poll, however so, too, are two new names. Both not solely have library backgrounds, however each work in close by suburban libraries. That’s extra expertise with the world of libraries and their objectives than the director can boast, and it will actually change the tides of course for the general public library and the group deserving of a robust, engaged, and inclusive establishment.
Though if the board continues to make use of its connections throughout the village authorities and chooses to not disclose unethical relationships, EPPL will proceed to see any outdated individual off the road in places of work of energy, to make sure that the complexion of the multicultural group by no means will get darker than porcelain.
So is the board guaranteeing that each group member will get their $200 price every year? Or are they as a substitute guaranteeing they get that and extra for themselves?
Note: a number of sources spoke with me, and I’ve elected to not use something apart from what’s solely obtainable in public sources and in a single FOIA request. What is laid out above is the tip of the iceberg.
*This quote is from the board minutes that have been altered from the initially revealed minutes, which can be found right here. The authentic minutes don’t embrace the be aware about not letting employees drown.
**The EPPL Board has a historical past of altering the variations of the minutes made obtainable to the general public. This doc represents the present state of the minutes, as of March 6, 2023. Because the board could alter these minutes, right here’s the doc of minutes to that are referred. Per the *be aware above, these are altered from the precise authentic minutes above. Pesko’s remark in the altered notes are extra supportive.
***The director was really fired, per sources, and the main points of her resignation stay unknown as a consequence of a nondisclosure settlement with the board.
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