The Oak Park Public Library board will have a significantly different makeup come May, following Tuesday’s election. The board will have four new members after incumbents Maya Ganguly and Matt Fruth were voted out in favor of newcomers Annie Wilkinson, Mika Yamamoto, Colin Bird-Martinez and Megan Butman. Fruth was the board president and served on the board for 20 years.
Wilkinson, Yamamoto and Bird-Martinez ran on a slate together.
Eight candidates were vying for four open seats, each of which was for a four-year term. Incumbents Fruth and Ganguly faced off against two slates of three candidates each. One slate consisted of Butman, Bruce Brigell and Daniel Suber. This slate decided to run after former executive director Joslyn Bowling Dixon was fired in March of 2024. The candidates believed Dixon wasn’t given due process before being fired and cited that as their main reason for running.
The opposing slate that thought Bowling Dixon’s firing was justified consisted of Wilkinson, Bird-Martinez, and Yamamoto.
Board Trustees Theodore Foss and Madhurima Chakraborty did not run for re-election.
Butman said Tuesday night was bittersweet because her two fellow running mates weren’t also elected. But she was happy to have won her seat, being a librarian herself. She said she thought it was important for the board to have a librarian amongst its ranks.
She also said she isn’t necessarily aligned with the other three candidates who were elected, but she will remain positive and find a way to work with them for the good of the library.
Butman and her running mates ran because they thought the previous executive director was fired without “due process.” Butman said Bowling Dixon should have been given an evaluation before being fired.
“The (executive director) is the board’s one employee and it should have managed that better,” she said.
Fruth wasn’t available for comment Tuesday. However, earlier in the week he addressed the issue of why the current board didn’t wait until after the election to hire a new executive director.
Fruth said he understands there may be criticism about the timing and that perhaps the hiring could have been put off a little longer to get input from any newly elected board members. But he said the committee built a process with search firm, Koya Partners, and collected input from the community and staff. The process was transparent, and if any of the board candidates were unhappy, they didn’t say so publicly, he said.
Fruth said if the board had waited until after the new board was seated in May, it’s likely a new director wouldn’t have been hired until July, and that could have meant losing out on potential candidates.
“That wasn’t a hypothetical situation. We lost out on a candidate between the second and third rounds of interviews. It happened and the board lost a good candidate who took another position,” he said.
In defeat, Bruce Brigell said he will remain active as part of the community and floated the idea of putting together a library foundation that would raise money to buy new furniture and perhaps renovate the Veterans Room. He said he wanted to have a role in making the library more comfortable and welcoming.
The four new board members will be seated in May. Winners Yamamoto, Wilkinson and Bird-Martinez did not respond to calls for comment.