The Salt Lake City library system’s Board of Directors has turned up the heat on library CEO Noah Baskett.

Following contentious public comments at the panel’s Sept. 28 meeting, board President Sariah Toronto announced a review of the library’s personnel policies, disciplinary actions and internal complaints over the past year, calling the probe “an appropriate next step.”

Toronto’s statement came after a lengthy comment period at the beginning of the meeting in which former employees and residents criticized Baskett and workplace conditions. The meeting came on the heels of a Salt Lake City Weekly story about staffing issues and alleged retaliation in the library system.

Quinn MacQueen, the former director of marketing and communications for the library, called for such an investigation in her Monday public comment.

“How can you really know what is really happening inside this organization if employees do not feel safe telling you?” she questioned.

Another former employee, Diana Castro, said a library executive accused her of sowing division through a workplace wellness committee that she ran.

“I was accused of bullying, sabotage and disengagement without a single opportunity to review the claims beforehand or prepare a response,” she said. “I felt belittled, misrepresented and completely abandoned. The workplace to which I had dedicated nearly a decade of my life, the library I loved so dearly, was no longer a place where I felt safe.”

Taken together, the former employees accused library leadership of failing to listen to their concerns and discouraging criticism.

Baskett, the CEO, pushed back strongly on the criticism in a prepared statement. He said he believed that anonymous comments published in the City Weekly story “were based in fear and not reality.”

“I welcome the independent review that Sariah just announced,” he said. “My entire HR team, we asked for the review, invited it, and I’m confident it’ll show that the allegations of write-ups or acts of retaliation simply have not happened.”

Toronto said that another board member, Sarah Vaughn, would carry out the inquiry.

Baskett, who was hired in January 2024, offered voluntary buyouts to staffers in May. At the time, library leadership said that no layoffs were forthcoming despite employees’ concerns. No layoffs have been announced since.

The announcement of those buyouts came just three months after the library and its employee union finalized a historic collective bargaining agreement.

Toronto, the board president, said the panel remains committed to the library’s new strategic plan it approved in late July.