Sugar Grove Library president to hire new interim director

The Sugar Grove Library board Wednesday gave its president permission to hire another interim library director.

President Joan Roth will find someone to replace Arlene Kaspik. Kaspik was brought on the same night that longtime director Beverly Holmes Hughes was fired, July 14, and had agreed to serve until sometime in October. But Kaspik told the board late last week she was quitting to tend to health matters.

Roth expects the library will be director-less through next week, but said that payroll matters are taken care of. The move does leave the library without a certified Freedom of Information Act/Open Meetings Act officer; Kaspik had just completed her certification last week.

The meeting was yet another opportunity for people to criticize the board, in a nearly 90-minute public comment session before the vote.

Rogene Kugler, wife of the much-criticized Trustee Art Morrical, announced she wants to re-form the Sugar Grove Library Friends. The Friends group voted Aug. 8 to disband, upset with the board’s firing of Hughes. The Friends had worked closely with Hughes on fundraising and providing volunteers and programming for the cash-strapped library.

And members of the audience were not pleased to learn from an attorney for the board that it was not likely the board would ever give specific reasons for why it fired Hughes, because doing so might violate her privacy rights or leave the board open to claims of defamation of character.

The meeting audio was streamed live on sugargroveonline.com.