Illinois Library Association Honors Elmwood Park Advocate Editor

By The Elmwood Park Advocate

For standing up for “the public’s right to access library spaces free from retaliation,” the Illinois Library Association gave Elmwood Park Advocate editor Kevin Gosztola their annual intellectual freedom award.

The ILA’s intellectual freedom committee issued a press release [PDF] on July 29 that described why they had chosen Gosztola as a recipient of their intellectual freedom award. It recalled how he had used the Elmwood Park Public Library’s main meeting room “without incident to host ‘Community Conversations,’ nonpartisan gatherings on topics like traffic safety and support for senior residents.”

“As his reporting grew more pointed, the library’s posture toward his group shifted,” the committee added. Library Director Michael Consiglio “began enforcing meeting room rules unevenly” and later proposed “a $100-per-use fee aimed squarely at groups lacking 501(c)(3) status—a policy no other user of the room, including for-profit businesses, had ever faced.”

“A subsequent draft policy would have let the Director deny room access based on speech made outside the library altogether, a provision that drew immediate public objection. The Director also withheld a legal opinion whose existence he had already acknowledged.”

Yet as the committee applauded, “Gosztola met each escalation with documentation, not retreat: filing FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] requests, appealing to the Illinois Attorney General’s Public Access Counselor, engaging ILA’s Intellectual Freedom Committee and the Citizens Advocacy Center, and continuing to hold Community Conversations throughout the dispute. His grassroots organizing drew residents to fill EPPL Board meetings in late 2025, opposing what many viewed as viewpoint discrimination against an independent local press outlet.”

“Thank you to the Illinois Library Association’s intellectual freedom committee for recognizing my effort to fight for freedom of expression and ‘the right to access library spaces free from retaliation,’” said Gosztola. “It was incredibly important to stand firm so that the library—and library board trustees—would not be emboldened in the future to support what I believe was an act of censorship.”

“I am relieved to share that since January the Elmwood Park Advocate has used the meeting room without worrying about potential interference. The meeting room policy was reformed so that only a $50 security deposit is required for reservations, and the library director recently referred to the newsletter as a ‘regular community partner’ in a monthly report to the library board.”

Gosztola dedicated this award to co-editor Sara Lindsay, newsletter contributors Ann Lindsay and Don Shanahan, and others in the community, who wrote to the library director and library trustees and spoke out at board meetings.

Separately, the committee recognized another Elmwood Park resident, Jack Bower, for his advocacy for government transparency.

Bower, who ran for a library board trustee position in 2025, recorded board meetings in 2023 and 2024 after the board initially refused to broadcast meetings. He uncovered the fact that the board had violated the Open Meetings Act in Illinois and shared his concerns with the state’s Attorney General, who confirmed that the board had violated the law on two separate occasions.

“Rather than address the underlying issues, the EPPL Director responded to Bower’s advocacy with a campaign of harassment—filing FOIA requests targeting Bower’s former employer, the Broadview Public Library, and appearing in person at Bower’s current workplace, the Rolling Meadows Library, in an apparent attempt at workplace intimidation. The harassment extended online, with hostile messages directed at Rolling Meadows Library’s social media accounts.”

“Bower did not back down, and his persistence brought public accountability to a library board that had, for years, operated with insufficient oversight,” the committee further stated.

“I’m grateful to the Illinois Library Association for this award. It recognizes that our public institutions must be accountable to their communities, and that accountability shouldn’t come at the cost of retaliation against residents who simply want the best out of their library,” Bower told the Elmwood Park Advocate. “Unfortunately, the intimidation and bullying in Elmwood Park continues and has expanded to other residents working to improve transparency.”

As the committee emphasized, neither Bower nor Gosztola “set out to become an activist. They simply insisted that public institutions follow public rules—and when those institutions responded with retaliation instead of reform, they kept showing up anyway.

“Their work has made the Elmwood Park Public Library, and libraries across Illinois, more accountable to the communities they serve.”