Wheaton library board 'taking the high road' on Friday hours

Seeking to end a dispute with the Wheaton City Council, library officials have reversed a decision to close on Fridays.

Wheaton Public Library board members Monday night agreed to reopen the library from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Fridays starting Sept. 10. The change will require other operational hours to be reduced throughout the week.

Library board President Colleen McLaughlin said her recommendation to restore some Friday hours is about taking the high road - not bowing to pressure.

The library board has been in hot water with city council members since implementing the Friday closures last month to make up for the loss of $300,000 in property tax revenue the city withheld to deal with its own budgetary problems.

To force the library board to reconsider the decision to close on Fridays, Mayor Michael Gresk recently replaced one library trustee. And the city council is expected to vote next month on a proposed law that would require the library to be open six days a week during the summer and all seven days during the school year.

But McLaughlin, who is an attorney, called the city's proposed ordinance "nonsensical" and "unenforceable."

"This ordinance was made without any regard to the specifics of how (the hours) should be accomplished," McLaughlin said, "or the impact of this very general policy statement on our ability to schedule holidays or make other appropriate closings."

McLaughlin said the library board "acted appropriately" and "in the best interest of the public" when the Friday closures were implemented because full- and part-time library employees have had their pay reduced by 10 percent and must take 26 furlough days this year.

Months before the Friday closures became a reality, library officials said they were considering the cost-cutting move to make up for losing property tax revenue two years in a row.

Because the library cut $300,000 in spending in 2009, further cuts had to involve staffing.

Several library officials said they were surprised by how the city council reacted to the Friday closures.

"We don't understand the tight position they are taking because this is happening to libraries all over the country," Director Sarah Meisels said. "This is what they have to do. They have to shorten hours."

Meisels said her hope is that both sides could sit down and resolve the dispute. In the meantime, restoring some Friday hours is about "taking the high road," McLaughlin said.

"What is important is that we move on, and we can do so," she said, "but it is at a cost."

Restoring four hours on Fridays will require the library to be open an hour less Monday through Thursday.

The plan is to modify the operating hours on those days to 9:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Because the library board's decision is in line with what the city council wants, Gresk said he hopes there's no need for the mandatory hours ordinance, which he and Councilmen Phil Suess and Todd Scalzo opposed drafting in the first place.

"If the library reopens on Fridays," Gresk said, "that takes the steam out of most of what that ordinance says."