Library District's Defeat Familiar

Libertyville Plans Differ, But Results Mirror 1998's

April 15, 1999|By John Flink. Special to the Tribune.

For the second time in as many years, Cook Memorial Public Library District officials are left wondering what to do to expand their crowded Libertyville library in the wake of the defeat of another referendum proposal.

The defeat in Tuesday's election by an almost 2-1 ratio was similar to the results last year, even though the proposal pitched to voters this time was sharply different from the plan they spurned the prior time.

The proposal by the district's board asked voters for permission to sell $25.4 million in bonds to build a main library in downtown Libertyville at or near the current site and a smaller branch library in Vernon Hills.

In 1998, the board was unsuccessful when it asked permission to sell $20.1 million in bonds to rehab the current library and build a facility in Vernon Hills. The library district also serves the communities of Green Oaks, Indian Creek, Mettawa and part of Mundelein.

Library Board President Joe Bean called the latest defeat a heartbreaker, noting that he and the board had held dozens of meetings with the public and even hired a Chicago polling firm to ask constituents whether they wanted their library to expand and how.

"This is the plan that we thought was appropriate, that was reasonable and was fair," Bean said late Tuesday night after the last votes had been counted. "Who won? The kids didn't win; the library didn't win. I don't know what anybody hoped to achieve with this vote."

Both of Bean's supporters on the board who faced election challenges, Don Hook and Cam Hock, went down with the bond proposal, losing to Doug Hansmann, Cindy Killian and Michael Kollman, candidates who ran as a slate opposed to the board's expansion plan.

With current Trustee Greg Mayworm, originally a lukewarm supporter of the expansion plan who came out for the opposition slate, the winners have a solid majority on the seven-member board.

The new trustees likely will be able to command their own quorum if they use their majority to appoint a trustee to fill the vacancy created by the resignation in March of Marcia Moore.

Kollman and his colleagues were supported by local businessman and community activist Jack Martin. Martin successfully forced incumbent Trustee Linda Lucke off the ballot for not numbering the pages of her nominating petitions in accordance with election law.

He also has stridently opposed both recent expansion plans. That led Bean, Lucke and Hook to file a complaint Tuesday with the State Board of Elections, alleging that Martin failed to follow state law by not filing organizational papers for his advocacy group, Cook Library Patrons, and that the group failed to report campaign expenses in 1998 of more than $10,000 or to identify its contributors.
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