Library Board President Resigns, Board Replaces Him With Handpicked Successor
By Kevin Gosztola, Editor
Library Board President Chris Pesko resigned from the board and handpicked Pat Foran to fill the position. The board held a closed session to consider whether to appoint Foran and then held a public vote, where trustees quickly approved his appointment.
The vote in favor of Foran was 5-1, with Library Trustee Mike Monahan objecting to the process that was followed.
Under the Open Meetings Act, the board may consider appointments in a closed session, but that is not mandatory. In fact, in September 2015, the River Grove Public Library Board announced two vacancies on the board and accepted applications from residents for around two weeks.
Pesko’s resignation was largely unexpected, though Foran was present at board meetings in June and July. Until then, Foran had not been regularly attending meetings.
Before trustees accepted his resignation, Pesko shared that he was stepping down as a result of “health challenges.” He then read a statement that was filled with irritation and resentment toward residents who had repeatedly criticized him, the board, and Library Director Michael Consiglio.
Pesko insisted that he had to read his statement rather than speak off-the-cuff otherwise “people” with an “agenda,” who have joined the board, would use his words as “raw material to take out of context.”
He proclaimed, “Be aware of people who loudly defend their own free speech while working to silence yours.” Yet he did not specify how defenders of free speech had tried to silence him or anyone else in the village.
“Elmwood Park is a community of working families. People work here hard for every dollar. When this library asks a household for a chair, that household deserves to know it’s getting real value back,” Pesko declared. “Not just a building that’s open, but a library that’s alive, growing, and meeting people where they actually are today. That was the vision this board committed to, and the results speak for themselves.”
Pesko was especially proud about what was accomplished since he helped hire Consiglio in November 2022. “Programs stood at around 480, and the annual attendance was shy of 10,000. Today, without a single full-time staff member increase, we’re running over 1,200 programs, and over 25,000 visitors to the library and those programs. That’s around a 150 percent increase in programs, and about a 170 percent increase in attendance.”
Without specifically naming any person or organization, Pesko maintained that certain individuals had shown up at “meetings to perform outrage for a handful of followers.”
“That’s not advocacy for this library. That’s advocacy against it. Real advocates show up when things are good, too. Real advocates say, our library grew 167 percent in attendance. Let’s make sure that keeps going. We haven’t heard that from some people, not once,” he added.
Typically, a library director would have a master of library science (MLS) or similar degree to qualify for the position. Pesko proudly selected Consiglio to run the library because he did not have a degree and had a background as a financial consultant instead of a track record of library experience.
“We made a deliberate choice to prioritize operational leadership, financial discipline, and community outcomes, and the numbers were right,” Pesko stated. “Some people will tell you this library needs to go back to a different way of doing things. They’ll frame it as reform, accountability, professional standards, but I ask you to look at the scoreboard.”
The bitterness extended to a general suggestion that there are people in Elmwood Park, who see the board as a “stepping stone to go somewhere else or to settle a score on behalf of someone who doesn’t live here.”
From 2001 to 2009, the 33-year Elmwood Park resident served as a library trustee. He was appointed to fill a vacancy in 2013, and shortly after, he assumed the role of board president—a leadership position that he held for the majority of the past decade.
The library board under Pesko’s leadership violated the Open Meetings Act twice—in 2022, when the board held six private meetings to interview candidates for the library director position, and in 2023, when the board appointed a new trustee without any public notice.
Pesko advocated for cutting evening hours on weekdays and moving board meeting times from 7:30 p.m. to 5 p.m., despite the fact that numerous working parents in Elmwood Park would not be able to attend if they wished to weigh in on a matter of public importance.
He developed a reputation for scrutinizing library spending, however, that did not necessarily mean that the library was always fiscally responsible. For example, during his last year in office, the library spent $47,000 more than the amount budgeted for legal expenses. It also did not spend funds that had been allotted for the purchase of books, audiobooks, DVDs, music, and video games. Now, the library is working to replenish its collection of materials.
Pesko backed Consiglio as the library director attempted to suppress the Elmwood Park Advocate’s access to library spaces, simply because a group of seven or eight unnamed individuals in the village objected to the newsletter using the library’s main meeting room. (Eventually, Pesko and the board relented, and the library now recognizes the Advocate as a “regular community partner” due to the newsletter’s monthly use of the room.)
As Pesko backed away from actions that the newsletter viewed as censorship, he said, “Anybody should be able to come here, whether you’re the Advocate group, whether you want to have ICE come in and do a presentation and stage here. I’m not going to stop you because if you’re part of this community, you have a right to do that.” (ICE and Border Patrol officers had detained thousands of people in Elmwood Park and surrounding communities in the Chicagoland area.)
At the beginning of the board meeting, Pesko acknowledged a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that was submitted by the newsletter. He did not, however, mention letters of interest for the vacancy that were sent by residents to trustees. Pesko also neglected to mention that the newsletter had written to trustees and urged them to fill the vacancy in an open session.
The Elmwood Park Advocate contended, “By holding a closed session to consider the appointment of a new Trustee, the newsletter will be unable to fully report on what transpired. The gaps in our coverage may fuel mistrust, especially since the Illinois Attorney General’s Office confirmed that this Library Board violated the Open Meetings Act when it considered an appointment back in 2023.”
“Additionally, entering into a closed session hampers the newsletter’s ability, and the wider public’s ability, to fairly judge whether the process for filling the vacancy is fair and merit-based instead of based upon political favoritism,” the newsletter argued.
Pesko insisted that Foran is a longtime “blue-collar” resident, who understands “what it means when a public institution asks working families for their money. He will make sure this library continues to be worth every dollar it asks for.”
Consiglio praised Pesko’s resignation speech, recalling that before running the library he was fortunate enough to work with lieutenant colonels who graduated from West Point and managed troops in Operation Desert Storm. He learned that “leadership is a hard thing to find in people,” and said “we were blessed to have Chris’s leadership.”
One of the most outspoken critics of Pesko and the library board, Jack Bower, submitted a letter of interest in the vacancy. He campaigned for a library trustee position in 2023 and 2025, and Bower has pushed for more transparency from the board.
“The board made an appointment without asking for interest from its community,” Bower stated. “While they’re technically following the law this time—after being found in violation by the Illinois Attorney General for their previous appointment, a board genuinely interested in serving residents would have opened this vacancy to public candidates rather than railroading it through in the same meeting.”
“How is this any version of transparency? This appointment sends a message: the board’s priority is maintaining the preferred circle of insiders, everything else is secondary. The library should not be one more cog in Elmwood Park’s political machine.”
Bower insisted that Pesko had “led the board through years of questionable decisions that undermined the library’s standing in the community.”
“I respect his decision to step down and focus on his health, and I wish him all the best. I’m hopeful that new leadership will take an approach that prioritizes the library’s mission over politics,” Bower said.
A little more than a week before Pesko’s resignation, the Illinois Library Association singled out the library director for retaliating against Bower and this newsletter instead of accepting accountability and upholding the right to gather and engage in free speech.
Here’s video that the Elmwood Park Advocate recorded of Library Board President Chris Pesko reading his resignation speech: