On an average day at the Evanston Public Library, conversations louder than a whisper might be met with judgmental stares or subtle shushing.
But when about 75 members of AFSCME Local 1891 — the city employees’ union that includes library staff — marched from Fountain Square on Wednesday to speak out against EPL’s potential break from city oversight, the volume shifted from reverent voices to bullhorn bellows.
“One city, one union,” the large crowd repeated during public comment at the library’s board of trustees meeting, which did not have enough seats to accommodate the protesters.
“Now and forever,” Union President Eileen O’Neil responded from the podium.
The group gathered in protest of library trustees’ monthslong exploration into a potential split from the city to become its own independent district — a move O’Neil said would “open the door to privatization schemes of private funds.”
As EPL stares down an about $19 million renovation on its main branch, it’s considering the separation to gain more financial autonomy. O’Neil argued that the trustees’ were not offering a “true picture” of the way they benefit from city funding.
She sees the proposed move as a means of breaking the union apart to pay employees less and have a smaller collective bargaining unit.
“Why does the city give the library such a great deal?” she asked. “Why does the city give the library so much bang for its buck?”
Before the 6:30 p.m. meeting commenced, two Evanston Police Department cars briefly blocked off the Church Street and Orrington Avenue intersection to allow union members to march from Fountain Square. From there, the crowd gathered at the library’s main entrance and lingered in the corridor, chatting with one another and distributing flyers before filing into the session.
Despite the meeting’s unusually high attendance, board members initially seemed unfazed. The audience spilled over from its designated space around the room’s perimeter while some library trustees shuffled in sipping Colectivo coffee or boba tea.
Business as usual.
They wouldn’t offer their own commentary on the situation until most of the audience had departed.
O’Neil was one of four public commenters to speak about the potential split. After she returned to her seat, Ald. Clare Kelly (1st), former Ald. Emily Guthrie (3rd) and AFSCME Local 1891’s library steward all offered their own insights.
Guthrie, who represented the 3rd Ward from 1993 to 1994, began by commending the board for allotting attendees enough time to state their case.
“City council does not do that anymore,” she quipped.
An Evanston resident since 1970, Guthrie said she hoped to offer information regarding the library that she thinks “may have been lost to history” and extended advice for the board’s next steps.
She empathized with the trustees’ financial concerns and recalled how EPL used to have exclusive oversight of its own operations before the city funded the construction of its main branch in the late 1980s.
“My recommendation is you either put pressure on the city council to put a binding referendum on the ballot so you can become a separate taxing authority, or, talk to a lawyer about how you can take back the authority,” Guthrie said.
Kelly, sporting jeans and a cardigan rather than the green union t-shirts that otherwise dominated the crowd, was the final public commenter of the evening. She said she was there as an “enormous fan of libraries” and believes EPL is an important “third space” for Evanston residents, particularly those in the 1st Ward where the library resides.
Kelly added it was her job as a council member to encourage the library to remain with the city and said she stood proudly with the union.
When the meeting shifted from public comment to unrelated staff presentations about day-to-day operations, most attendees left the room. The meeting paused momentarily because the group did not exit quietly.
After nearly an hour of discussing planned agenda items, the board circled back to the events that transpired at the top of the meeting.
Board President Tracy Fulce said she was less “nervous” about discussing the split with a smaller group in attendance. A union member herself for nearly 20 years, she said she was grateful that so many people had shown up to demonstrate their belief that “libraries matter.”
“Over the past few years we’ve wrestled with some challenges that really deserve rigorous examination,” Fulce said. “Asking questions is not disloyalty, that’s what stewardship is.”
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