MY TURN: The iceberg Capt. Plass isn't seeing
I appreciate Trustee Plass and his willingness to serve his community. He represents a segment of it that deserves to be heard and considered as library services are discussed. However, Trustee Plass wants to play the county’s smallest fiddle for his pity party.
He’s had “challenges” and “difficulties” over the last 10 months — he fails to consider the challenges and difficulties he may be inflicting on his community and on library staff who have dedicated lives and careers to public service. As a new public servant, he may want to look toward library workers to get some tips on meeting the needs of his community — the whole community — instead of bludgeoning them with his bull-headed inexperience.
He says that he won his election in May of 2023 by a “large majority.” Let’s look at the facts.
There are 106,242 registered voters in Kootenai County. He and his co-candidate Hanley ran a very partisan race — even though they didn’t have an R next to their name on the ballot.
Of the over 67,000 registered Republicans, Plass managed to squeak out 13,804 votes. The candidates who lost against him had 12,471 and 11,912 votes respectively. That doesn’t sound like the landslide “large majority” he claims. In fact, he only received around 13% of the county’s registered voters' support.
His opinions about what is “obscene” are his opinions, not those of many of the constituents in the library district. Time and time again, constituents show up to speak at library board meetings, and while they are speaking, Trustee Plass fiddles with papers, doesn’t pay attention and ignores what library users have to say. They aren’t saying what he wants to hear.
There are methods in place to allow parents to monitor their child’s checkouts at the library. There are tools, like limited cards, that will restrict a minor’s ability to check out materials based on their parent’s preference when the parent can’t be there. There is also the tried-and-true method of accompanying your child while they use library resources and services.
However, the small contingent that Trustee Plass has aligned himself with doesn’t want to limit access just to their kids, they want to limit mine and yours. They want to remove a parent’s ability to decide what is acceptable for their child. How are conservatives not up in arms about a government entity deciding what is appropriate for their families? Don’t take my guns … but taking my books is OK?
Trustee Plass is trying to game the system by making it so the library doesn’t purchase the books he doesn’t like in the first place. That’s his version of public stewardship — gaming the system. That is his proposed workaround. It doesn’t matter if the community wants a book. If it doesn’t fit his idea of what is appropriate, the library shouldn’t buy it.
He and his cohort want to be the gatekeepers for the community resources you and your children can access. The resources that your property taxes fund just as much as theirs. If that isn’t government overreach, I don’t know what is.
I don’t think Trustees Plass, Hanley or Ottosen are “evil” and “must be stopped.” I think they are woefully misguided, don’t understand the first thing about what a library is, are unwilling to listen to the entirety of the communities they serve and are entrenched in ideologies that don’t serve the needs of those communities — particularly the marginalized portions.
I think they are reckless with all of our tax dollars. They are willing to pass policies that even Trustee Plass recognizes are against library standards and court decisions and will cost the district. Statements like, “Ultimately, a judge must rule on each book for certainty,” are not defenses for short-sightedness. That is absurd. Why not just keep the district out of the perpetual money pit that type of legislation will create in the first place?
As far as the board’s “Oversight of the restoration of water-damaged facilities” maintaining the CLN budget … The costs of that are covered by insurance, and the board isn’t even involved. There wasn’t even a budget change to consider regarding it. They are just muddying the waters.
All you have to do is go to the recorded board meetings and see for yourself. They don’t even want to talk about it, scheduling 5 minutes to discuss its progress at some board meetings because the policies they want to jam through aren’t moving fast enough.
Finally, it isn’t the community coalition of concerned citizens made up of all different political and social leanings who have come together under the banner of the “Library Alliance of North Idaho” you have to worry about misleading you; it’s the hubris of certain board members you need to worry about.
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Nathan Hansen is a Post Falls resident.