Barbs traded over books, budgets, more

POST FALLS — Does banning books protect freedom?

That was one of the questions asked of Community Library Network trustee candidates who participated Saturday in a town hall hosted by the League of Women Voters of Kootenai County at the American Legion Post 143 in Post Falls.

“I’m not so sure you’ve heard me talk about banning books so far,” candidate Tom Hanley said. “I’m talking about protecting children.”

Hanley said he has been labeled several things.

“I'm going to read these horrible things off here, because I’m not supposed to say them: authoritarian, book burner, book banner, censorship, extremist and crazy. I think I’m a crazy as well, I saw written out there, and a person who wants to prohibit free speech,” he said. “I don’t think protecting the children would be well-described in terms of saying that these policies we’re looking at doing, keeping the children safe in the libraries, is a bad thing to do.”

Community Library Network Vice Chair Judy Meyer answered that it’s not the proper role of a library board to ban books.

“How does that work? If you don’t have access to books, you better understand what your freedoms are — and your responsibilities,” she said, adding that a policy regarding this issue is in place and has been for a while.

People are welcome to fill out forms to challenge books in the library, Meyer said: “The first question on that form is, ‘Have you read the book?’”

“It’s our responsibility as a board to make available to the public lots of different kinds of books,” Meyer said. “Come in and see what we have. Don’t take out the ones you don’t want. Manage your children, I think that’s one major issue that we have as libraries … How do we help kids have a good experience in the library, how do we help families have a good experience in the library?”

Incumbents Meyer and Regina McCrea squared off against newcomers Hanley and Tim Plass, all vying for two Community Library Network board trustee seats up for grabs in the May 16 election.

The town hall packed the American Legion Hall. A few people with opposing opinions held signs communicating their viewpoints about libraries and their contents.

Moderating the event was Patrick D. Costello, emeritus law professor at the University of Idaho and chief judge of the Colville Tribal Court.

Participants did not know the questions ahead of time.

Answering a question about funding and wages, McCrea said the library network is mostly funded through taxpayer money, grants and a portion of sales tax for a budget of about $6 million, with $2 million set aside in reserve. She said one of the big things the board does is set the budget.

“It has been stated in the mailers from my opponents that the library district has taken a maximum percentage increase over three fiscal years. That’s absolutely false,” she said. “We have not taken the maximum increase allowed by law for the last three years.”

For fiscal year 2020 and 2021 the network took no increase, she said.

“For fiscal year 2022, we did raise it 2%, but the growth in the area and the valuation of homes had risen at that point in time, so most people’s taxes went down, even though we did increase our funding by 2% that year,” she said.

“I’m a taxpayer just like you. I want to know that the money is being spent wisely. But I will tell you, it’s a balancing act and I do think we need to get our staff up to a living wage,” McCrea said. “The compensation study that we undertook in our district last year under the guidance of Amy Rodda showed us that we are very, very out of whack and a lot of our workers could make more just going to Spokane.”

Plass questioned why staff members work at the network if they can just go get a different job.

“Why do we have to pay what somebody’s survey says a living wage is?” he asked. “Everybody wants more money. It’s market-based. They are getting a competitive pay package, I assume that’s why they’re there. They’re happy. So competitive or living wage is really a non-issue, it’s market value.”

Plass said he didn’t understand why the $2 million was set aside.

“I would be looking for anything to justify why we have a big slush fund,” he said. “I don’t know if we’re waiting to buy a new building, I don’t know whether we’re waiting to buy more books, I don’t know what we’re doing.”

McCrea responded that it’s not a slush fund.

“It’s not a slush fund at all. If you’ve lived in this community for as many years as you say, it would have been helpful to come to one of our budget hearings,” she said. “If you had questions, you could have asked them — the reserve, the capital reserve fund, is so that the library is able to continue operating when the fiscal year starts because the first tax payment doesn’t come in until January or February and the fiscal year starts in October, so if we didn’t have the reserve, the library literally would not be able to pay a single bill that’s coming in. So that is not a slush fund, it is not part of the budget, it is not used. It’s there to get us through.”

She addressed his comments about why the library has to pay its staff for what it does.

“Because we probably would get sued if we didn’t,” she said. “The reason we had the (McGrath Human Resources Group) study done is to have a comprehensive look at our salaries to see whether or not we’re in market, and you certainly don’t want to subject this district to a lawsuit because we aren’t paying market rate and looking at the broad categories across salaries and making sure we have parity and equality among our staff.”

Several times, Hanley brought up topics and described content found in library books — sex, profanity, illegal drug use and more. Hanley, who has been vocal about protecting children from pornography in libraries, disclosed he does not have children.

“That’s another one of these nonexistent books that’s appropriate to the current board and should be available to your children and my children,” he said after discussing a particular book. “I don’t have any children, to be honest with you. I would have loved to have had children, it didn’t happen, but I have neighbors, I have families, I have people at my church who do have children. I don't think those books belong out there.”

Toward the end of the meeting, the candidates discussed a sourceless campaign flyer that is pro-Hanley and Plass and circulated the community telling residents North Idaho’s public libraries have books with sexually explicit materials in the children’s section and other misleading information. It fails to state who it was paid for by, which is a violation of Idaho Code under election campaign contributions and expenditures.

Meyer emphasized disseminating this kind of material without a source is illegal in Idaho. Hanley and Plass denied any knowledge of the sender, although Hanley said he ought to write them a “thank you” note as it is heavily in his and Plass’ favor, while Plass said the flyer misquoted him.

The Community Library Network has seven branches throughout North Idaho. It is separate from the Coeur d’Alene Public Library.

Visit https://bit.ly/3M2kNRJ to view a recording of the town hall.