Meristem Advisors, the chosen consultant, will review the value of services that EPL receives from the city
By Bob Seidenberg
Facing significant renovation costs on a building it doesn’t own, the Evanston Public Library Board of Trustees is reaching out to a consultant to look at the library’s financial future and recommend options, including the possibility of EPL separating from the city to become its own district.
At Wednesday’s meeting, trustees unanimously approved a consulting contract of up to $50,000 with Meristem Advisors for financial guidance and debt financing, and to plan for a referendum should the library attempt to separate from the city into an independent unit — as another of Meristem’s clients, the Aurora Public Library, successfully did in 2020.
Yolande Wilburn, the library’s executive director, told trustees that Meristem will perform a detailed cost analysis, which should give officials some idea of the value of the services the library is receiving from the city.
“So it is not necessarily to say that we are going to separate from the city, but this will help us to be able to prepare, to plan,” Wilburn said.
Board President Tracy Fulce also cautioned against placing too much emphasis on the idea of separation at this point in the process.
“The headline is, ‘The Library is doing the responsible thing for citizens to ensure we understand how much things are worth, and how much we should pay so that we don’t leverage our resources inappropriately,’ which is completely in line with the strategic plan,” Fulce said, referring to the document that lists key goals, which Wilburn reviewed with trustees earlier in the evening.
Questions over the library’s financial position emerged last year, when trustees began to grapple with how to pay for an estimated $21 million in needed renovations at the main library, 1703 Orrington Ave., which opened in 1994. The board even contemplated dipping into its reserve fund to cover the maintenance work.
New MOU still undecided
Though the city owns the property, the library board is responsible for upkeep of the building, creating what Fulce once described as a “very nebulous relationship with the city that has a cost to it.”
