Carol Stream library has two finalists for director’s job
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Six months after the controversial firing of Ann Kennedy as Carol Stream library director, there are now two finalists for the job to be her successor, library officials said.
Both candidates were interviewed by the library's management team on Saturday, Interim Library Director Marilyn Boria said.
The library board met in closed session Saturday to discuss the director search, but Boria and board President Mike Wade wouldn't confirm if an offer was made to either candidate.
Wade said the search "is proceeding."
Once an offer has been made and accepted, the new leader would become only the third full-time director in the library's 50-year history, following Lynn O'Dell and Kennedy.
Kennedy was fired by the board in July after six years as director — the result of divergent views between she and a new board majority led by Wade.
In July, Wade said Kennedy's firing was prompted by "communication issues," though the two long were on opposite sides of issues, including Kennedy's support for a new library facility and annual budgets that Wade argued resulted in higher taxes.
The search for Kennedy's replacement started in August, coordinated by Alice Calabrese Berry Consulting, which collected applications from about 15 candidates, conducted phone interviews with many of them, and helped narrow the list.
Berry, the former executive director of the Metropolitan Library System and current president of the River Forest Public Library board, is charging the Carol Stream library $100 an hour to conduct the director search. Under terms of an agreement with Berry, the maximum the library would be charged is $10,000, though Berry has not yet submitted a bill to the library, Boria said.
Boria, who retired as the Elmhurst Public Library's director in 2011, is contracting with the library at a rate of $60 an hour, working 50 hours every two weeks.
