KC-area library leader quits after trustees rejected diversity, condemned LGBT program
Steven Potter, director of the Mid-Continent Public Library in Independence is resigning after more than a decade at the helm, and a wrong-way shift to the hard right in library board ideology has something to do with it.
Potter said he believes he is no longer a good fit to lead the three-county system, which in the last two years has become governed by a majority conservative board of trustees bent on blocking programs for LGBTQ youth and squashing moves to increase diversity.
That’s not what public libraries should do.
“It has become clear to me that I may not be the right person to lead this institution going forward,” Potter wrote in his resignation letter to Board President Ron Thiewes.
Potter, 55, told us on Thursday that he wants to spend more time with his family and have less stress. “With so much going on in the world and so much added pressure here over the last couple of years,” Potter said, he feels it will take “someone a little less tired,” to run the library going forward.
Trustees have made it clear they favor moving away from the traditionally inclusive nature of public libraries everywhere — which is to provide communities with free access to a variety of materials and not just the books and programs that suit their religious, political or social beliefs.
“I feel sad that Steve Potter is resigning because Steve stood for access to information for all,” said Jackson County Trustee Susan Wilson. “I think the library system will suffer because of the loss of his expertise and institutional knowledge.” Added longtime Jackson County Trustee Joycelyn Burgo: “If there was a way to keep him at the helm, I would be all for it.”
But Wilson said “recent developments have made it difficult for him to do his job.”
Since 2019, when five new trustees from Clay and Platte counties were appointed, some board members have publicly spread false information, questioning issues of diversity, equity and gender identity — and whether books dealing with those issues belong on library shelves.
Last October a majority of the board refused receipt of a diversity audit from a human resources firm hired by library staff. At the same time, Platte County Trustee Yummy Pandolfi wrongly called diversity, equity and inclusion efforts to hire more people of color “Marxist” — the social, political and economic theory commonly linked to communism.
Platte County trustee Rita Wiese also rejected the diversity audit, saying: “Diversity for diversity’s sake is unconstitutional.”
And last year during Banned Book Week, several trustees on social media attacked a display designed to highlight the free and open access to information at an Independence library branch.
In 2019, the board was involved in controversy over events that gave transgender people space to discuss their life experiences after teen suicides in the Mid-Continent district. Trustee Wiese, in a letter to a Platte County newspaper, said transgender programs were inappropriate for a public library and “lead children toward being sexually exploited.”
A group of current and former employees started a petition to save the library from “pro-censorship and anti-inclusion” trustees and called for them to resign.
Potter said that for more than a year he’s thought about retiring from the library where he started his 34-year career as a night clerk shelving books. He leaves June 30, 2022, two years before the end of his current contract.
His absence will be a big loss for the system, which operates 33 libraries serving 850,000 residents in Jackson, Platte and Clay counties.
Mid-Continent grew under Potter’s leadership, from the introduction of ebooks in 2010 to the 2016 launch of a plan to rebuild or remodel every library in the system.
It was his goal, Potter said, to fulfill a promise made in 2016 when voters approved an 8-cent levy increase to upgrade libraries. This week, Mid-Continent acquired the last property needed to complete its building projects.
Potter’s leaving should not be taken as an opening to pull books off shelves, exclude thoughts you don’t share or toss out plans to improve diversity.
The board must search widely and hire a new director who, like Potter, believes in what has been the Mid-Continent’s longstanding mission of “expanding access” to diverse, innovative ideas and supports everyone’s freedom to read.
This story was originally published February 25, 2022 at 12:42 PM.