Former CLN trustees, Kootenai County GOP settle lawsuit
COEUR d’ALENE — More than a year after two former Community Library Network trustees sued the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee and several of its members for defamation, the matter has been resolved.
Judy Meyer and Regina McCrea originally filed the lawsuit in May 2023, seeking damages in excess of $10,000 and naming multiple Kootenai County residents who distributed letters that accused the former trustees of committing crimes against children amid their reelection campaigns.
In court Monday, attorneys for the parties confirmed that a settlement has been reached and a motion to dismiss the lawsuit will be filed in the near future. A jury trial was previously scheduled for November.
The details of the settlement are confidential, though McCrea described the resolution as “amicable.”
Brent Regan, the chair of the KCRCC and one of the defendants named in the lawsuit, declined to comment on the settlement Tuesday.
“I’m party to it, so I have no comment,” he told The Press.
Meyer and McCrea said the resolution of the lawsuit will allow them to close this chapter and move forward.
“I felt it was important for me, personally, to move on,” McCrea said. “All of us only have so much capacity and energy to put into things.”
The suit alleged that multiple named and unnamed defendants delivered defamatory letters to hundreds of Kootenai County households ahead of the May 2023 election.
The letters said Meyer and McCrea “allowed graphic books with text and pictures describing every imaginable sex act to be purchased and displayed to children,” an allegation the former trustees have denied.
The lawsuit contended that the letters damaged Meyer’s and McCrea’s “reputations for honesty and integrity” and impacted their standing in the community.
McCrea and Meyer lost their bids for reelection to challengers Tim Plass and Tom Hanley. In a four-way race in which two winners prevailed, Plass and Hanley received 12,917 votes and 14,491 votes respectively, while Meyer garnered 12,634 votes and McCrea received 12,070 votes.
The former CLN trustees reflected Tuesday on events that have occurred since last year’s election.
McCrea said she believes the mudslinging she and Meyer faced leading up to the election was emblematic of a bigger problem.
“We were used as scapegoats, yet the current trustees seemingly get a free pass, when they’ve not substantively done anything regarding materials selection,” she said. “They’ve really not moved the needle in any significant way, and they have cost the taxpayers a lot of money.”
Meyer, who served as a CLN trustee for more than 30 years, said she remains concerned for Kootenai County, where libraries are “under siege.”
CLN broke ties with the American Library Association, a nonprofit that promotes libraries and library education, last October. The board has also split the library network’s materials selection into two new policies, with one addressing materials selection and acquisition and the other addressing materials withdrawal and reconsideration.
Recently, trustees put off a decision on a proposed policy to lock “objectionable materials” in cabinets or closets and require patrons younger than 30 to provide a government-issued photo ID and sign a logbook monitored by surveillance cameras in order to access the materials.
The library network has faced significant staff turnover in the past year. Last month, CLN laid off 13 part-time employees across four libraries, citing budgetary shortfalls.
In another effort to cut costs, trustees voted as part of the fiscal year 2025 budget to close all CLN branches on Sundays. The closures went into effect Oct. 1.
“As a longtime citizen of the area, I’m very troubled by the political climate here,” Meyer said. “Idaho can do better. It must.”
Meyer
Regan