Evanston Public Library board members ostensibly serve three-year terms. But, after four members’ terms expired in the past few years, Board President Tracy Fulce said City Council has yet to fill their positions.

So the members continued showing up to work, in some cases for more than a year after the end of their terms, Fulce said. 

“Because our board continues to function, essentially, without issue, members just continue to serve beyond their term,” she said.

The library board oversees Evanston Public Library and supervises the levy of library tax. Fulce said the board is currently in the process of searching for an executive director, an important task that requires the full board — though only five people are currently officially appointed. 

The problem of vacancies is not limited to the library board, though. Eleven of the city’s 24 boards, committees and commissions are currently unfilled. The number of vacancies ranges from one to two — or six, in the case of the Commission on Aging and Disabilities, which has a total of nine seats.

Mary Rosinski, a realtor and Evanston resident for more than 30 years, serves on the Parks and Recreation Board. The board currently has two unfilled vacancies. 

“I think (the vacancies) have an impact on conversations,” Rosinski said. “It’s better if we have more input because parks are all over the town and ideally, you want people from all over the town.”

Rosinski said she applied for the board at the end of 2021, but the city never contacted her after she applied. Instead, she learned of her appointment to the board several months later from a resident who attended the City Council meeting where the mayor made the appointment.

The city should reform the application and appointment process to make it more transparent, Rosinski said. 

“I think it’s a disservice to the people who apply to be on a board or commission and donate their time that there is not even a ‘we will consider it at this date’ and there’s no follow-up,” Rosinski said.

Karla Thomas, chair of the Equity and Empowerment Commission, said she expects City Council to appoint new members to fill the commission’s two vacancies soon. 

However, she said the commission’s volunteer nature and limited power restrain it from making substantive progress. 

“The commission can’t vote on anything, doesn’t control anything, can’t do anything,” Thomas said. “It’s just a bunch of volunteers sitting at the side, who can come up with good ideas until they’re blue in the face, but we have zero power to actually implement them.”

For Evanston to fulfill its promise to eradicate inequities in its services and operation, Thomas said the city should hire full-time employees — instead of relying on volunteer commissioners — to make changes from within the system. 

Looking forward, Fulce said the city should be doing more to promote opportunities like the library board openings. She said she is pleased to see a new section highlighting openings on boards, committees and commissions in the city newsletter. 

“We, as community volunteers, really want to make sure that there’s (an) opportunity for everyone who wants to participate to engage in the important work,” she said.

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