“Their focus is to change the very nature of the library,” Lynch says.
Since their swearing in on May 19, the new board has wasted no time in imposing its agenda. In addition to Makula and the other two, there was another conservative already on the board, so this gave them a four to three majority.” “Fewer than 2,000 people out of more than 57,000 who were eligible to vote, voted to fill four open slots,” Lynch told Truthout.
#Niles ilibrary upgrade
Elizabeth Lynch, an organizer with #SaveNilesLibrary, a campaign of the Niles Coalition, says that she does not know what provoked Makula’s involvement, but it quickly became apparent that his goal was “to object to the library being a community center.” He also opposed spending to repair the building’s aging roof and upgrade the facility to better bridge the digital divide separating low-income residents from their more affluent neighbors.īut despite, or perhaps because of, his political outlook, Makula - who did not respond to Truthout’s request for an interview - won the April election and now holds a seat on the library board two other fiscal conservatives were also elected. Many were stunned by his response: “ Instead of stocking up on books in seven different languages, if we got people to assimilate and learn English better, I think we would do more good in that area than increasing our inventory of foreign language books.”Īt the time of his candidacy, Makula was a known person in Niles, having previously led efforts to impose term limits on elected officials and stop the town mayor from filling vacant trustee positions, but his interest in the library was new.
When Joe Makula decided to run for the board of the Niles-Maine Public Library in Niles, Illinois, this spring, a community member asked him how he thought the library could better serve the area’s increasingly diverse community.
0 kommentar(er)
