Downers Grove library trustee under fire following controversial remarks

DOWNERS GROVE – The Downers Grove Village Council is expected to vote Sept. 5. on a resolution calling for the removal of Arthur Jaros from the library board following controversial remarks he made at a recent meeting.

Jaros, a Downers Grove Public Library Board of Trustees member since 2015, allegedly questioned at an Aug. 23 board meeting why library staff required training in equity, diversity or inclusion.

"He stated he objected to staff, who would be around children, receiving any training in how to handle inclusion," according to observer notes taken by a member of the League of Women Voters of Downers Grove, Woodridge and Lisle.

Sue Farley, who took the notes, could not be reached for comment. The library does not record its meetings, but it will begin the practice at its Sept. 13 meeting, Director Julie Milavec said.

“A lot of his comments were about same-sex marriage and homosexuals,” Milavec said.

Jaros’s comments came during a discussion of the diversity component of the library’s strategic plan.

"Should the staff be trained in inclusion, Jaros continued, it would open the library up to problems. The children, in his opinion, had to be protected by library staff from inclusion by ignoring its existence," according to the observer notes, which are posted on the League of Women Voters website.

Jaros also read from the sex education section of the Illinois School Code, according to the notes.

“He personally commented that the code he read did not recognize homosexual marriage and he felt the library must not either,” the notes stated. “The staff had to protect the children from homosexuals and exposure to homosexual lifestyle.”

Inclusion is a key component of the library’s mission, Milavec said.

“We are here to serve everybody,” she said. “Public is public. The public library is here to provide services to all residents of this community.”

Milavec would not comment on Jaros’s future on the library board.

“At this time, it is the Village Council’s decision to move forward or not move forward,” she said.

Efforts to reach Jaros were unsuccessful.

Mayor Martin Tully said he appointed Jaros to the library board because of the budget and finance knowledge he displayed as a member of the Downers Grove Park District Board of Commissioners.

“It was really the skill set I wanted from him,” Tully said.

Tully asked Jaros not to be “a lightning rod for controversy.”

“What he said was very inflammatory,” Tully said. “It’s now become a big controversy. The controversy is disruptive and distracting. It has erupted into a fire storm. There was no reason to go into this in the first place.”

Jaros on Sept. 1 declined Tully’s request to resign from the library board, the mayor said. A DuPage County judge Sept. 5 ruled against Jaros's motion to block the council from removing him from the board, village officials said.

Village commissioner Greg Hose expressed his displeasure with Jaros’s remarks on his Facebook page.

“Trustee Jaros is entitled to his opinions and beliefs, but he is not entitled to impose them on the library, the village, or our residents,” Hose said in a post. “Discrimination on the basis of race, creed, color, gender, or sexual orientation has no place in the village of Downers Grove.”

Jaros's appointment to the library board was surrounded by controversy.

Jaros had been labeled a “book banner” by residents who recalled a 1999 incident in which he allegedly was a member of a group that tried to ban a book from a Community High School District 99 school.