In a children’s library festooned with balloons and streamers, more than 75 Grayslake residents crammed together Tuesday night not for storytime, but for a fight.
At the front sat resident Jane Josephs, cradling in her hands a petition with more than 702 signatures. Meanwhile, in the back of a card catalog room stacked with boxes, members of the library board huddled, preparing to meet an angry public.
Fed up with plans to move the site of a proposed library from a village park to a vacant lumberyard, angry residents had braved foul weather to harangue their library trustees over the decision-and, in the case of one embittered resident, to demand their resignation.
“You may be the library board, but you don’t own the library,” resident John Leligdon fumed, demanding that all seven board members either change their minds or resign their posts immediately.
His passionate plea was met with both cheers and catcalls by residents.
“Our goal is to stop the library board from signing a contract for the Hook’s Lumber site” on Center and Seymour Streets, Josephs said. She had spearheaded the collection of signatures, which she presented at the board meeting.
In November, the 1,600 residents who voted to pass a $4.6 million library referendum thought they would be getting a new building tucked into bucolic Central Park.
Instead, the library board earlier this year dropped the Central Park site for the lumberyard-a decision some observers say had more to do with political feuding between the library and park districts than the public good.
Library board Secretary Sharon Krueger disagreed sharply with that view. “We have decided that we need to get out of the (Central Park) agreement,” Krueger said. “That’s our decision, and that’s what we’re going with.”
Or, as feistier board member John Shay put it: “They don’t intimidate me. The more they push, the more I say no.”
Meanwhile, Josephs and her contingent are threatening to take their grievance to the Lake County state’s attorney’s office, alleging they were duped at the polls.
“This is not what we voted for,” said Ginny Birch, another opponent of the library board’s move. “This is a violation of the taxpayers’ rights.”
Assistant State’s Atty. Van Herrero said he had talked to several Grayslake residents last week but had not received a formal complaint as of Tuesday.
“A lot of people are angry for a lot of different reasons,” said Grayslake Mayor Pat Carey.
Library supporters waged an aggressive campaign to get their bond referendum passed. Hundreds of residents, including Birch and Josephs, had received fliers, telephone calls and even specially printed bookmarks touting a new library and its proposed park location.
There was one problem, Carey said: “The issue on the referendum had nothing to do with Central Park.”
No mention of Central Park appeared anywhere on the ballot. It was understood, though, that plans called for the Grayslake Park District and the library to build a joint facility at the park.
But on Election Day, the library’s bond issue passed, while a companion referendum question covering the park district’s share of the costs failed.
A July 1993 agreement between the library and park boards gave each other 30 days after the election to pull out if either referendum failed. For a while, though, both parties continued planning for the Central Park library.
Things came to a head in March, Carey said, as the park and library trustees locked horns on the issue of parking.
Original plans called for 178 spaces. The park district-at the urging of Grayslake School District 46-asked for 224 spaces. So who would pay for the extra 46 spaces, at an estimated cost of $1,000 to $1,700 apiece?
The school board ultimately backed down on the parking issue, Carey said, but at that point, “for some reason, the library board decided to pull out.”
The library board, which currently occupies two storefront sites in the downtown area, decided to stay close to its current home. In late June, the board voted to buy the vacant Hook’s lumberyard for an undisclosed sum.
Library officials justified the move by saying the site would cost less than moving to Central Park.
But Carey pointed out that no dollar figures have been released by library officials. Nor have they explained how they would save money buying the old lumberyard, given the fact they would have gotten the Central Park site for free.
Josephs, who was among a handful of protesters who picketed the Hook’s site Saturday, argues the lumberyard location is unsafe because it’s too close to the Wisconsin Central tracks.
