Kelly, thank you for writing a thoughtful and well-constructed piece, especially exposing the biased and ill-researched Wednesday Journal articles.
I am a community member of Oak Park and was inspired and proud to have a nationally recognized, renown librarian and leader to have Joslyn Bowling-Dixion as the library’s Executive Director.
Shame on the board! They are cowards who sided with a leadership member who fed them lies, because they did not want to be accountable for themselves. The same goes for the other person complicit in the mess.
I appreciate you giving the public all of the information—clearly something the Wednesday Journal did not care to do.
This is what I said on Kate's LinkedIn post about this situation. "Not enough attention is given to these boards and the havoc they wreak on their libraries. Boards do not need to do whatever anyone asks them. There's a lot of bad leadership on public library boards." You are spot on when you say who would take this job. My two cents: They will hire some 35 year old white guy.
I'm surprised this happened in Oak Park. It seemed like they were a well run library. I'm not sure if there are newer board members? Plus, the last director was well regarded and won awards. If he was using reserves for payroll, what in the world?
I’m wondering what the previous ED was doing with the reserves, too. For the longest time I heard rhe reserves were healthy. Maybe it is related to the pandemic. Have to say I wasn’t as enchanted as some people were with the last leader.
Kelly - the board statement makes it clear that the Palestinian event is not the reason for the removal of the executive director. To paint the situation as a misinformation campaign is simply false. Plenty of evidence was shown in the board meetings that it was indeed mishandled and treated differently than other similar events. While that did cause harm to community members - it was never considered the reason for the removal. The reality is the ED was beloved by only some and many staff expressed concern, fear and feelings of retaliation. Unfortunately the board’s handling of this situation did not allow that to be well documented and come to light fully. But to assign blame for the removal of ED Dixon on the Palestinian community members who were rightfully expressing hurt simply increases harm and misplaced the blame - which belongs with the board and Ms Dixon herself.
Kelly, I appreciate your coverage of this happenings at OPPL but your rendering is disappointingly one-sided. Although I feel the board acted hastily, the former director had a greater responsibility in the designation of the event and failed in her communication. While you paint it to be very clear cut and completely the fault of another staffer, there was more communication regarding this designation that you chose not to include. Ms. Griffin’s email said the program would be treated like the Asian American event which was promoted and the Palestinian event was not. This is was a choice that the library leadership made and was later criticized for. When facing criticism, I believe the former director showed a callous and indifferent response to the hurt felt by community members and this is ultimately what caused this situation to escalate. It is truly unfortunate to lose a director so quickly but I do not appreciate how you paint this to be a matter of the board listening to an unreasonably angry mob.
Wow! I saw the link to your article on one of the Oak Park area FB groups I belong to. Thank you for explaining the situation at the library. My husband and I were utterly confused after reading the Wednesday Journal’s articles. They didn’t make sense. As a member of the community, and a regular library user, this spectacular meltdown has created a big problem. As you noted, who is going to want to lead this mess? And the dwindling reserves is something I am embarrassed to admit I wasn’t aware of. Thanks again for posting this.
Kelly, thank you for writing a thoughtful and well-constructed piece, especially exposing the biased and ill-researched Wednesday Journal articles.
I am a community member of Oak Park and was inspired and proud to have a nationally recognized, renown librarian and leader to have Joslyn Bowling-Dixion as the library’s Executive Director.
Shame on the board! They are cowards who sided with a leadership member who fed them lies, because they did not want to be accountable for themselves. The same goes for the other person complicit in the mess.
I appreciate you giving the public all of the information—clearly something the Wednesday Journal did not care to do.
This is what I said on Kate's LinkedIn post about this situation. "Not enough attention is given to these boards and the havoc they wreak on their libraries. Boards do not need to do whatever anyone asks them. There's a lot of bad leadership on public library boards." You are spot on when you say who would take this job. My two cents: They will hire some 35 year old white guy.
I'm surprised this happened in Oak Park. It seemed like they were a well run library. I'm not sure if there are newer board members? Plus, the last director was well regarded and won awards. If he was using reserves for payroll, what in the world?
I’m wondering what the previous ED was doing with the reserves, too. For the longest time I heard rhe reserves were healthy. Maybe it is related to the pandemic. Have to say I wasn’t as enchanted as some people were with the last leader.
Kelly - the board statement makes it clear that the Palestinian event is not the reason for the removal of the executive director. To paint the situation as a misinformation campaign is simply false. Plenty of evidence was shown in the board meetings that it was indeed mishandled and treated differently than other similar events. While that did cause harm to community members - it was never considered the reason for the removal. The reality is the ED was beloved by only some and many staff expressed concern, fear and feelings of retaliation. Unfortunately the board’s handling of this situation did not allow that to be well documented and come to light fully. But to assign blame for the removal of ED Dixon on the Palestinian community members who were rightfully expressing hurt simply increases harm and misplaced the blame - which belongs with the board and Ms Dixon herself.
Kelly, I appreciate your coverage of this happenings at OPPL but your rendering is disappointingly one-sided. Although I feel the board acted hastily, the former director had a greater responsibility in the designation of the event and failed in her communication. While you paint it to be very clear cut and completely the fault of another staffer, there was more communication regarding this designation that you chose not to include. Ms. Griffin’s email said the program would be treated like the Asian American event which was promoted and the Palestinian event was not. This is was a choice that the library leadership made and was later criticized for. When facing criticism, I believe the former director showed a callous and indifferent response to the hurt felt by community members and this is ultimately what caused this situation to escalate. It is truly unfortunate to lose a director so quickly but I do not appreciate how you paint this to be a matter of the board listening to an unreasonably angry mob.
Wow! I saw the link to your article on one of the Oak Park area FB groups I belong to. Thank you for explaining the situation at the library. My husband and I were utterly confused after reading the Wednesday Journal’s articles. They didn’t make sense. As a member of the community, and a regular library user, this spectacular meltdown has created a big problem. As you noted, who is going to want to lead this mess? And the dwindling reserves is something I am embarrassed to admit I wasn’t aware of. Thanks again for posting this.
No embarrassment needed. Don't carry that. There are so many moving parts to these things.