Former Springfield mayor Jim Langfelder and current Mayor Misty Buscher disregarded more than 100 years of precedent when they bypassed Lincoln Library’s board of trustees for advice in the hiring and firing of the past two library directors.
That’s according to a statement from the board, an unpaid, advisory panel appointed by the mayor. A board member read the statement to the City Council on July 18.
The trend of mayors ignoring the board’s bylaws and city code, both of which call for the board to be involved in interviews, hirings and firings of directors, “is not how libraries are run elsewhere, and it is not how Lincoln Library was managed for its first 130 years,” the statement said.
“Rather, these are dangerous precedents that will undoubtedly make it more difficult to attract quality candidates to fill this vacancy,” the statement said, calling out Langfelder and Buscher for a “pattern of disrespect and disregard for the board.”
“The position of library director should not be a political one,” the board said. The job “now seems to be intrinsically linked to the mayor’s office in a way that prevents us from attracting the innovative, passionate candidates that we need to make Lincoln Library the gem it deserves to be,” the board said.
Langfelder, who was defeated by Buscher in the April 4 election as he attempted to win a third four-year term, said his decisions on hirings and termination weren’t political.
“Even though I appointed members to the Lincoln Library board, I always worked with and through the library director,” Langfelder said. “Doing so gives the library director and the library board greater latitude to carry out initiatives and not have a politicized facility.”
He said his decisions were based on his legal authority as mayor and had the blessing of former Corporation Counsel Jim Zerkle. Former library director Rochelle Hartman told Illinois Times that Langfelder said he wanted to “go in a different direction” when he fired her.
When asked to elaborate, Langfelder later issued a written statement that said in part: “It was becoming evident that more quality and qualified staff were leaving the library. This, along with previously documented employee issues, required change before we lost other employees.”
Langfelder’s spokeswoman, Julia Frevert, said the “previously documented employee issues” involved “employee and union concerns” communicated to the city’s human resources department “due to management issues that did involve Hartman.”
Minutes from the board’s Jan. 26 meeting showed that Langfelder and then-City Attorney Jim Zerkle attended, but Langfelder declined to give the board specifics as to the reasons for Hartman’s termination.
Based on the minutes, Zerkle didn’t say why the mayor didn’t seek the board’s advice before firing Hartman.
Langfelder told the board in January that he would be “open to allowing the board to interview prospective directors” going forward. But Langfelder didn’t follow through on that offer before Summer Beck-Griffith was hired, according to Geoff Pettys, the board member who read the board’s letter to the City Council.
Buscher never said why she terminated Langfelder appointee Beck-Griffith in mid-May. Buscher didn’t respond to the statement when it was read July 18.
“We were essentially dismissed,” Pettys said. He is a Springfield native and Langfelder appointee who has a master’s degree in library science and works at another library in Springfield.
Buscher wouldn’t say why she fired Beck-Griffith, calling it a “personnel matter,” but she said her motivation wasn’t political. She didn’t say why she didn’t consult the library board before taking action.
Buscher’s spokesperson, Haley Wilson, said the mayor is “looking forward to discussions” between Interim Library Director Kathryn Harris and the board “to place a permanent director at the Lincoln Library.”
How involved the board will be in those discussions remains unknown.
Corporation Counsel Greg Moredock, who was chosen by Buscher to succeed Zerkle, said it’s clear in city code that the mayor has the authority to fire a department head, such as the library director, and hire a replacement, subject to final approval from the City Council.
The board’s statement said board members want city officials to comply with city code and the board’s bylaws by giving the board resumes and cover letters for all applicants for the permanent position, and allowing the board to interview applicants and recommend who should be hired to the mayor and City Council.
Moredock said he may work with the board to amend the bylaws so they don’t appear to conflict with the mayor’s hiring and firing powers.
The director of Lincoln Library, 326 S. Seventh St., is paid $96,000 annually and oversees a wing of city government with a staff of about 40 and an annual budget of about $6 million.
According to the board, the trend of the mayor bypassing the board’s advisory role began under Langfelder in 2017 with the hiring of William O’Hearn, who later resigned to take a job at a library in Oregon state, and continued with the hiring of Hartman in August 2019, Hartman’s firing by Langfelder in January 2022, the subsequent hiring of Beck-Griffith by Langfelder and her firing by Buscher in May after less than a year on the job.
Hartman’s departure marked the first time a mayor had fired the library’s director, according to the board, and Beck-Griffith’s firing by Buscher marked the first time a new mayor fired a previous mayor’s appointed library director.
Since the library began 137 years ago, there have been 12 library directors, with the average term of a director being 15 years between 1886 and 2017, the board said.
Before O’Hearn, Nancy Huntley served as director for 24 years, from 1993 to 2017. There have been four directors in the past six years.
Pettys said the library director “should not be a political position. You need a long-term strategy. You need to have a vision. You need leadership. You need continuity.”
If the board can’t have a say or formal role in hiring the director, “I don’t know what we do,” Pettys said. “What is our purpose?”
The board said it studied the public libraries in Bloomington, Decatur, Champaign and Peoria.
“All of them have a layer of insulation that protects them from the political shakeups that come from changes in city administration,” the board’s statement said. “All have boards with the authority and responsibility of hiring and firing the library director.”
Moredock said the 1987 federal consent decree that changed how city government operates – so that residents are represented by elected ward alderpersons instead of at-large commissioners – would prohibit Springfield’s library board from being granted hiring and firing powers.
Pettys, who has been on the board since spring 2021, did research for the letter and found a history of the city underfunding the library – an issue that both Hartman and Beck-Griffth spoke about publicly.
The library had 74 full-time employees in 1992, Pettys said. The total dropped to 63 full-time employees in 2009 and 37 in 2017, he said.
The library’s west side branch at 1251 W. Washington St. and its southeast branch at 2500 South Grand Ave. East closed in 2010. The north branch at 719 North Grand Ave. East closed in 2005.
Illinois Library Association guidelines suggest that a public library serving a community Springfield’s size should have a staff of at least 88, Pettys said.
Pettys and board president Andre Jordan said they would like to see city code changed to give the board more autonomy.
“We definitely would like to have a seat at the table, especially as a starting point,” Jordan said.
This article appears in Transgender turmoil.
