Activist Toolkit

1. What motivates you to seek this office? What skills, experiences, and perspectives would you bring to the Village, and why would those contributions be valuable in the role of Library Board Trustee?

I believe that the Library can be a model for how all of Oak Park’s local governments can continue to provide a high level of service, while pausing the unsustainable growth in taxes.  Oak Parkers value their local services, and have always supported them generously, but it is clear that the trajectory of spending and tax increases is now preventing many people from moving into the Village, and causing residents to leave sooner than they want to.  The tax burden can be justified for those who are wealthy, or who have children and will derive enough benefit for what they pay in taxes.  The village is increasingly a place in which people raise children and then leave, a dynamic which itself will drive up school, park and library costs as empty-nesters are replaced by families.  I don’t want Oak Park to be a village where only the wealthy and high-earning young families can justify the cost of taxes and afford to stay here.

With a partner, I started a technology company and grew it to over 50 employees and a multi-million dollar budget, the size of our Library’s budget.  From this I learned about hiring and motivating the best people for the long haul, how to finance and carry out long-term projects, negotiating with vendors and customers both large and small, and controlling costs based on external reality.

I’ve served for many years as a volunteer board member of two homeowners’ associations.  This has taught me skills in managing a shared budget.  I’ve learned to separate wants from needs, and the importance of broad consensus among residents before committing to projects and spending.  Both associations that I’ve participated in have operated with integrity, transparency, and without political contention. 

2. What are the three biggest challenges or opportunities you expect the Library to face in the coming years, and how would you work with your colleagues to address these challenges or realize these opportunities?

First - the Library must put the brakes on its spending and tax increases. It has grown far faster than inflation, and we need to pause the increases and give the residents a chance to catch up.  What this looks like needs to be debated, but I would suggest at least 5 years of zero growth in spending. This will be a huge challenge for the board, which has not had a focus on restraining growth. I hope that my voice will serve to balance the board a bit, and help the other members continually consider this important value. 

Second - our Library, like all libraries, must evolve as the world’s information environment is being revolutionized.  The basic idea of a community-supported resource for everyone is still as valid as ever, but what this means is going to change rapidly. There is going to be a migration from physical books, magazines, DVDs, etc. to shared access to digital resources.  The challenge I see is maintaining access to physical materials, keeping them up to date for those who want that, while also adding new digital media.  It’s not going to be possible to do both at full speed, so compromises will need to be made, based on the current needs of the community and on where it is headed.

3. How will you balance competing interests, such as your own deeply-held values and opinions, input from Library staff and fellow board members, and diverse views from the community? How would you describe your leadership style and your decision-making process generally?

I’d like to point out something I’ve learned about the notion of a leadership style as a member of two other volunteer boards. I don’t view serving on a volunteer board as a position of leadership - it is service to ourselves as part of a community. The board should reflect, not direct or lead, the community. Certainly some board members view their role differently, as visionary leaders of the community who will move the Library forward in line with their own values.  

Regarding competing interests, this is always an issue when there are finite resources and a long list of ideas. The standard answer is to look at costs and benefits, and prioritize spending accordingly. It’s important to be impartial here, not preferring personal priorities or parties, but looking clearly at what provides more or less value to the broadest part of the community.

4. What values would you bring to the budgeting process? What changes do you favor in the process by which the Library conducts its budgeting and fiscal planning?

The Library’s budgeting process is already reasonably transparent and well-documented.  There is an unhealthy void, however, regarding the value of spending constraint.  I would be a strong voice to hold the line on spending growth.  I don’t propose cutting the budget, but by trying to hold it flat, we can make up for many years of what I consider irresponsible spending increases.

5. How will you balance the community's desire to decrease the property tax burden with the Library’s mission of sharing information, services, and opportunities, and the need to maintain facilities?

The library has squandered several chances to lower their portion of the tax burden through its decisions to increase spending when taxes dedicated to other things became available to the Library. 

Over the last 5 years, the library paid off two bonds, reducing the annual expenses of the library by more than 2.5 million dollars a year.  These bonds were from the construction of the new library and upgrades to Maze branch.  The library broke faith with the residents, who approved the bond referendum with the explicit promise that levies were for construction, and not forever.  Instead, the library increased its operating expenses, almost in sync with rolling off of the debt service. The library captured all the tax revenue that had been funding the construction bonds, against the explicit terms that the public understood when the bonds were approved.

This abuse of the residents’ generosity happened again in 2018, when a TIF district in Oak Park expired.  TIFs are a tool to help develop the Village and increase the tax base by dedicating a stream of new tax revenue into subsidizing a local area, like Madison Street.  The TIF district, by design, captured the levy increases that occurred because of the development in the district, and directed them back to help fund that development. The rest of Oak Park did not benefit directly from the TIF levy increases, but the long-term advantage was said to be an increase in the tax base through development, which would lead to eventual tax relief when the TIF expires and the new development’s taxes can then help relieve the general tax burden. Unfortunately, by law, when the TIF expired, the Library, like our other taxing districts (Schools, etc), was given the opportunity to increase its tax levy by its portion of the TIF district’s increased tax base, or to continue to operate with its usual levy.  The library chose to increase its levy and its spending using its portion of the growth that the TIF generated, instead of maintaining its levy and enabling the areas outside the TIF to effectively reduce their tax burden.  There was no relief through development via the TIF as far as the Library is concerned.  Oak Park Township, on the other hand, recognized that it was operating just fine with its existing revenue and did not need to increase its levy just because it could under the law. It chose to let the TIF work as designed: tax relief through development and a bigger tax base.  The Library chose to increase its spending instead, with no relief. While local politicians tried to get tax relief by helping to develop the tax base with a TIF, the Library has not been on board with that.  

Through the TIF and bond payment capture, the Library Board has demonstrated that when choosing between increasing its own budget, or contributing to tax relief by declining to capture other local property tax streams, it will choose to increase its budget. The current Library Board will never take meaningful steps toward tax relief.

6. How do you define equity? Have recent discussions in the larger community informed or changed your thinking?

Equity, as it applies to Village government, means providing services in a way that each person can benefit fairly, and that no one is excluded or diminished in how they can use the services. Services that are funded by the broad community should typically be those that will be used by the broader community. It would not be equitable to require everyone to pay for an expensive niche service like providing individual chess lessons or commercial tool borrowing, for example. Those are best provided by volunteers, requiring a fee for service, or private businesses outside the Library.

Equity includes providing support so that more people can access particular services. Not everyone is an expert computer user, or has access to high speed internet.  The Library can provide on-site access and assistance in using it. Equity at the Library means taking care to address the different ways people want or need to access its services, and being diligent in providing the types of information services and supports that the full spectrum of residents can benefit from.

7. How do you plan to solicit feedback from people who may be experiencing Oak Park’s libraries in a different way than you? What barriers do you believe may exist in this process?

Everyone will experience the Library uniquely, and I would love to hear suggestions and complaints. The Library already solicits feedback on site, and on line, which is shared with the board. Personally, I maintain an active on-line presence in the Oak Park Residents group on Facebook and can be easily reached there.  

8. How will you collaborate with neighboring communities? Discuss a specific initiative you would wish to undertake. What benefits and challenges would you anticipate?

I don’t have any specific initiatives regarding neighboring communities. I would listen to any suggestions from the Library’s Executive Director and other staff.  

9. In recent years, the Library has replaced security guards with social workers, increased salaries for its lower waged workers, and eliminated late fees for borrowers. Do you believe these initiatives have been successful? Why or why not? Are there ways in which you would anticipate expanding or rolling back this work?

I don’t have enough information to judge the effectiveness of these policies. Doing away with fines makes sense as long as it doesn’t interfere with other users’ access to materials.  Fines should never be relied on as a source of revenue in my opinion. The question is whether users are having to wait longer because of late return abuse.    

Raising salaries, if they are well above typical market rates, is not a responsible way to spend the Library’s limited money. It prioritizes the existing employees over possibly hiring more employees, over the possibility of expanding or adding new services, over increasing the hours of the Library, etc. Salaries and benefits must be generous enough to attract well-qualified employees - that is the appropriate benchmark in my judgment.

Regarding hiring a social worker, I think this is outside the role of the Library, just as it would be outside the Park District’s role. Oak Park provides social supports through the Township, and through the school districts for students and families.  By overlapping with these long-established services, the Library is an example of how Oak Park spends too much by not consolidating its efforts.  

10. What lessons learned from the services provided or not provided during the pandemic do you believe will be applicable going forward, even after the pandemic abates?

Overall, I feel that the Library did not adapt well during the pandemic.  Compared to neighboring libraries, it was much slower to offer most services - it never offered curbside pickup, despite having an underground garage in which to do it. Elmhurst has been open on site since June. Berwyn offers curbside pick-up and is now open. Forest Park’s library is open as of early February, with time limits for patrons. Oak Park’s library is not open as of February 2021 and only recently began offering contact-free pick-up 4 hours most days. Despite very limited service, Oak Park did not reduce its budget. I compare this to a health club that essentially closes for many months, but will not refund any of the pre-paid membership fees, while maintaining a full staff the whole time.  The pandemic brought hardship to everyone (personally I was laid off from Groupon), but the Library seemed to try to shield itself from these hardships, at the community’s expense, much more so than other Library districts. 

11. In an era of radical changes to how people find and consume information, what should and shouldn’t change about the services provided by the Library?

I discussed this in question 2. The Library has to navigate this change from shared physical resources to shared digital resources methodically. There needs to be careful analysis of usage of physical books, magazines, etc. to make sure that we are spending on what is broadly used. At the same time, there are many current users who likely will never want or be able to switch to all digital, so as physical materials are phased out, enough must remain for them. We’ve been through transformations from records and tapes, to CDs, to streaming, and the Library’s role in providing audio has evolved and eventually diminished. Where it makes sense to provide a shared digital resource the Library would naturally be the place for that.

12. How do you feel services and supports for homeless patrons fit within the mission of the Library?

I don’t feel that this is directly in the mission of the Library. The Library should welcome anyone, including non-residents, into its sites. But it should not be a locus of homeless person support services. The Township of Oak Park is the best place for that - not the Library, the Park District, the schools, or the police.

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[The above answers were supplied on 2/19/21.]