Reesheda Graham-Washington | rgwashington.com
Reesheda Graham-Washington | rgwashington.com
Former Republican candidate for the Illinois House Laura Hois at a recent meeting confronted the Downers Grove Public Library board of directors over its continued relationship with RGW Consulting over its diversity, equity and inclusion consulting contract.
The Downers Grove resident had urged the board to sever ties with the controversial firm last November.
"The way the library has gone, unfortunately, the library for the past three years has accepted RGW’s recommendations for the strategic plan and it's really disappointing to me and many residents who would certainly not have gone down that path," Hois said during public comment at the April 26 meeting.
The library board of directors voted in March 2022 to hire RGW Consulting to help in the search for new leadership for the library. The company, which is headed up by Reesheda Graham-Washington, has been retained since then for various pieces of training and analysis of the library’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, West Cook News reported.
According to the article, Washington's controversial history includes cashing a large PPP grant for her snack shop "L!VE," which was later closed and used as a campaign location for two Oak Park candidates and was the site of a supposed hate crime that police were never able to solve. Washington also reportedly received $30,000 from a GoFundMe account, which was started after the crime was reported, and soon after closed the shop location for good.
Hois urged the library board to reconsider its working relationship with RGW, announcing that “for all honest, hard-working, high-tax-paying residents to know: For the period from March 3, 2020, through the present, DGPL has paid a whopping $157,367.00 to RGW Consulting LLC for Rasheeda Graham-Washington's anti-racist consulting and staff training.”
Her yearlong contract, which included a nonrefundable deposit of $22,500 out of the total $45,000 fee, ended on March 31. Hois told the board that RGW has the same agreement with several libraries in the area, and RGW serves them all with a cookie-cutter style.
The board did not make any response to Hois' comments.
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