What are the responsibilities of Library Board Trustees?

• Library trustees are responsible for setting policy, overseeing the budget, supporting and evaluating the director, ensuring legal and ethical compliance, and guiding the library’s long‑term vision on behalf of the community.
  
  

How long does a Trustee serve for?

• Cromaine District Library trustees serve four‑year terms. This fall election, four of the seven board seats are on the ballot. One of those seats is currently held by Nancy Rosso who is running for re-election. The remaining three seats will be elected in 2028, following the regular staggered election cycle.
  
  

How can I meet the candidates or ask questions?

• You can meet the candidates at the public meet‑and‑greet events listed on the Events page. You may also contact each candidate directly using the email addresses provided on the Contacts page if you have questions or would like more information.  

Is the library board election partisan?

• Library board elections in Michigan are supposed to be nonpartisan, which means candidates are not supposed to run with a party label and no party affiliation appears on the ballot. Voters can choose any candidate regardless of their own party preference, and straight‑ticket voting does not apply.  Nonpartisan elections are intended to keep library governance focused on community service rather than party politics.
  
  

Who can vote and where do I vote?

• Residents who live within the Hartland consolidated school district and are registered to vote may participate in the library board election. Voting takes place at your regular polling location, the same place you vote in all other local elections. To confirm your voter registration, precinct, or polling place, visit the Michigan Voter Information Center or the Livingston County Clerk’s website. Don't forget to vote for our candidates on the BACK of the voting sheet!

What happened with the ALA/MLA memberships?

• The current Board majority voted to end the library’s institutional memberships in the American Library Association (ALA) and the Michigan Library Association (MLA). Board members who supported the change stated publicly that they believed the organizations were “biased” or “political.”
  
  ALA (founded 1876) and MLA (founded 1921) are professional, nonpartisan library associations. They provide legal guidance, professional development, continuing education credits, training, policy standards, and statewide collaboration for over 2500 Michigan organizations.

Many Michigan libraries rely on these memberships to maintain professional accreditation, staff training, and access to statewide resources.

Ending these memberships has been a significant point of discussion in the community because the decision was based on personal political partisanship, and it resulted in the library paying higher non‑member rates for the same professional training—effectively doubling the cost to taxpayers. 

Why are books being labeled or relocated?

• Trustee Bill Bolin coordinated a book challenge where a group of twelve people affiliated with his church network challenged 218 books - LGBTQ+, parenting, civil rights, feminist memoirs, 14th amendment, and STEM/science books alleging they were all "exploitive to children."   They also stated their religious beliefs on these topics should take precedence over the constitutional rights of others. 
  
  The Board created a policy that would give them authority to put labels on or relocate these books to the adult section when they met a strict definition of sexually explicit content. The Board grew frustrated that they were unable to relocate books that met the definition, so they abandoned the policy and voted to relocate the remaining 160 juvenile and teen books to the adult section against the warnings of the library's legal counsel and the ACLU.  Their decision raises concerns of viewpoint censorship, constitutional violations, and failure to comply with the library's reconsideration procedures.  (Board of Education v. Pico, 457 U.S. 853 (1982)), (Sund v. City of Wichita Falls, N.D. Tex. (2025))
  
  

Why are people concerned about recent board decisions?

• Since taking office, the current Board majority has sought to take political and religious control over the library, its staff, and its content:

Policy changes that removed language protecting patron privacy rights to equal and fair access to information, free from discrimination and censorship.  Changes that also granted the Board overreach into operational decisions, using their government roles to discriminate against others and make decisions based on ideological viewpoints instead of upholding Michigan library law and patron constitutional rights.

Book relocation and labeling decisions that are inconsistent with professional library standards of neutrality and based on personal viewpoint.  Trying to label and group LGBTQ+ books as a classification is not neutral; there are not library classifications for black books, Jewish books, disabled books, etc.  Libraries classify books based on format, genre, audience, or topic.  Separating books based on race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation stigmatizes groups of people and is considered viewpoint discrimination. 

Governance issues of harassing staff, stifling public participation, failure to respond to patron inquiries, failure to hold one another accountable for misconduct, and acting in the interest of a partisan political and religious agenda against the library, in direct violation of their oaths as Trustees.  Public libraries are neutral secular government institutions and Trustees are required to perform their duties without political or religious motivations. 

Fiscal recklessness involving using twice as much money for training because they refuse to support MLA memberships; costly legal fees to change compliant policies into unlawful ones, and decisions made against legal counsel's advice that invite hefty lawsuits intended to drain the library's budget.

Equally alarming was the suggestion that this agenda be a blueprint for all other libraries in Livingston county and across Michigan.