In addition, O’Neil said, AFSCME is supporting an effort to amend a city ordinance and return the library to a city department status, which she claimed would restore oversight and transparency.
Typically Library Board of Trustees meetings have sparse attendance, but on Wednesday, it was attended by as many as 55 employees, with another 35 waiting online to participate via Zoom. In response to the large crowd, the board limited public comment to one minute per person. That move was criticized by some, as was the lack of microphone at the lectern.
A statement from Tracy Olasimbo , the family engagement librarian, urged the board to amend a recent bylaw change and remove a new human resources manager position from the library’s 2026 budget.
“[The bylaw change] concentrated power in the hands of one person, giving the Executive Director near total authority, with no real oversight,” Olasimbo alleged. “That is not transparency, accountability or good governance. These decisions directly affect how we work and how our community experiences the Evanston Public Library.”
She also questioned where the library would come up with the money to pay an HR manager.
“We’ve been told the library cannot afford a 5% shift differential for a few hours a week so staff can run programs and serve Evanston — yet somehow we can budget for duplicative services and an HR manager for 2026. That is not a lack of money. That is a lack of priorities.”
Board president: Meeting not canceled despite narrative
Library officials have maintained the board updated its bylaws to ensure compliance with the Illinois Library Law and to align with public governance best practices.
After union employees had left the meeting, Board President Tracy Fulce expressed concern about “a great deal of public conversation about the library, much of it fueled by misunderstanding, speculation or incomplete information.”
“We received repeated requests for a joint meeting with the city council,” she said. “However, the proposed agenda items included items that could not legally be discussed in a joint meeting, internal personnel issues and operational matters that fall under the sole legal authority of the board. As a result, no joint meeting was scheduled because an impermissible agenda cannot be publicly noticed under the Open Meetings Act, despite that, the narrative that a meeting was canceled has taken hold.”
Board president: A level of hostility that feels ‘racialized’ She said she also wanted to “acknowledge something difficult but really important.”
Board President Tracy Fulce: “The level of hostility directed at us…has felt disproportionate and at times racialized.” “Over the past several weeks, our Executive Director (Yolande Wilburn) and I have been the target of public accusations, mischaracterizations and even calls for our removal, and I will name this plainly: the level of hostility directed at us, — black women leading a major civic institution — has felt deeply disproportionate and at times racialized.”
“I will not speculate publicly on the motives of those who engage in such behavior, but I will say this, I refuse to be intimidated out of doing a job I volunteered to do, nor will I allow our incredibly competent ED to be victimized,” Fulce said. “Similarly, this board elected me to lead, and I will continue to do so with integrity, transparency and care, even if others choose conflict, spectacle and misinformation.”
Calling AFSCME the most diverse union at the city, O”Neil said “This is not about race. It is about following our collective bargaining agreement.”
Izzy Grosof , an assistant professsor at the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University, was among those speaking in support of employees at the public comment session.
“I want to say that I think it’s of importance that the library and the city do not split any further from one another than they already have,” Grosof said. “The working relationship between the two is essential. Being an employee of the library and being an employee of the city are one of the same thing, and the further we separate, the further there’s an attempt to segment the relationship, it’s just going to be to the detriment of everybody attending the library, everybody who works here.”
Library officials maintained at a city meeting some weeks ago that their focus has not been on becoming an independent district.
The Board has been pursuing a new lease with the city as well as a new intergovernmental agreement with the city for more than a year.’
“An intergovernmental agreement would clarify roles and cost responsibilities for services (including Human Resources, IT, and finance support) on the buildings the city owns, in a manner that ensures responsive, sustainable services for residents,” officials previously said.
Others also weighed in during the public comment portion of the meeting.
• Lorena Neal, EPL’s legal literacy librarian, and communications chair and union steward for library workers, spoke of safety concerns, noting that there had been 14 reported safety incidents the Board’s last meeting, including one she counted as one of the most serious she’s experienced in more than two decades of experience at EPL. The incidents followed the elimination of one of the Library’s safety monitor positions.
Lorena Neal, the Library’s Legal Literacy Librarian: “This is about trust. The library administration is asking library staff to trust that if you bust our union into fragments that you’ll take care of us.”
“In my view the question of whether the library can or should split from the city isn’t about a legal framework,” she said, using library officials language. “It isn’t about bylaws. This is about trust. The library administration is asking library staff to trust that if you bust our union into fragments, that you’ll take care of us.”
Mary Kay Schneider , a former Evanston Public Library employee, expressed a similar view. “I love my work but ultimately I left because of the anti-union climate from leadership made it impossible. I love my work but ultimately I left because the anti-union climate from leadership made it impossible. I watched voices ignored, protections eroded and a collaborative culture steadily undermined. Let’s. Be honest, this (the changes) isn’t about innovation. It’s about weakening workers. Overextended staff relied on the city-wide union for basic stability and fairness. The community sees this.”
Eric Parker, an Evanston resident and library employee for more than decade, warned about “the harm that happens when leadership evaluates people they’ve never taken the time to truly know, when the hands and hearts that keep this building (the main branch) alive are treated as afterthoughts.”
”Right now our staff is hurting,” he said. “And we’re asking softly, sincerely for the Board to just see us, please remember that the decisions made in this room ripple outwards into the life of real people — women balancing work time, caregiving, parents trying to build security, young workers finding footing in the world today, longtime employees who’ve given their hearts to this place.”
Several outside the library checked into the discussion too, including former Alderman Ann Rainey, who served on the council 34 years and was a member of the group which worked toward the opening of the then new main building in 1993.
She spoke against any transfer of building from the city to the Library, an idea which reportedly has surfaced as the two sides discuss a new intergovernmental agreement (and the city faces a massive capital improvement costs in some of its other buildings.).
“My issue is you can be in this building until it falls down,” she told the Board, “but this building is a city building (and) will never be a library building permanently.”
• Trisha Connolly , a retired District 65 librarian who collaborated over the years with librarians of Evanston Public Library, related that “what I’m seeing and hearing is sounding familiar, like a page from the book of the City of Evanston… adding a third party to the mix, a consultant, to lay out what’s best for our community, rather than collaboration with professionals within the organization and community at large.”
“I’m wondering where is Mayor Biss as this drags on. Our mayor says he supports unions and workers, so he should be doing all possible to make an effort to bring together the board and the workers and figure this thing out.”
• Lori Keenan, one of a group of Evanston residents who worked to separate the library from the city, also weighed in online.
”Our intent was to protect and strengthen our library system and preserve access to the branches by getting the library budget separated from the city budget,” she said. “Instead, now those branches have closed and the library itself feels less robust — and certainly less welcoming for residents and for the employees who, not only serve this community, but are also part of it. In a way, sadly, it feels to me a little bit like Frankenstein’s monster.”
