LIBRARIES: Watch authoritarians in action
For decades library trustee roles were nonpartisan. Yet over this last year, the Community Library Network majority trustees have shown themselves to be extremist. That the end justifies the means is evident in how the majority treats fellow trustees, library staff, the press and the public.
Opinion pieces by Rachelle Ottosen, Tom Hanley and Tim Plass regularly use words like trash, filth, nasty and lying to describe ideas they don’t like. Chair Ottosen uses Soviet terms to describe this newspaper, has sheriff’s deputies remove citizens from public meetings, and labels library user input “propaganda.”
Trustee Plass has argued with the district’s lawyer about almost every point for months. He recently argued against governmental accounting rules with the outside accountant making the annual presentation of CLN’s audited financial statements. These are tactics used by authoritarians.
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