By Gretchen Garrity
The Christian County Library and local road issues were the subjects discussed at the March 27, 2025 Christian County Commission town hall meeting. The meeting was held in Ozark.
The next town hall meeting is on Saturday at 9 a.m. at Nixa City Hall.
Paula Bishop, a former member of the CCL board of trustees and a current candidate for the Spokane School Board, was an early speaker. She felt the newer board members had not lived in Christian County long enough to know what Christian County residents expect, and she also accused three of the board members of being Christian nationalists. "Not that there's not a lot of Christians in Christian County but there's not that many Christian Nationalists," she said.
She accused board members of being rude to employees and trying to undermine policies and procedures in place. "I just think you could have chosen better--more better."
Lonnie Brandon, the president of the Friends of the Library (a nonprofit that raises funds for the library) also spoke. He said he had emailed the commissioners but had not received a reply. Two times he spoke and asked the commissioners if they were accomplishing what they intended with the library board appointees.
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| Lonnie Brandon. From: Christian County Library |
Presiding Commissioner Lynn Morris replied that it was too early to tell. Eastern Commissioner Bradley Jackson described his experience with appointing positions and noted, "I've been moderately vocal when it comes to pornography...sexually explicit material in the hands of children. I registered a concern with the past board. They acted not at all with regards to--so something had to change. In my opinion, I've raised three daughters. I tried to protect those daughters at all costs, whenever I can, and the thought that any one of my daughters could walk into the library pick up a book and look at sexually explicit material at a young age, disturbs me. Absolutely disturbs me. There are books inside the library that I don't agree with, but they're there, and they can stay there. They just need not be accessible to children. When that board decided they were going to do nothing to protect the innocence of children, I'm not ashamed that we changed out some board members."
He mentioned the previous board president refused to do anything about sexually explicit materials in the children's section of the library. "Well, I'm sorry, he's got to go," Jackson said.
Paula Bishop then spoke up and asked if there weren't already state laws that prevented sexually explicit books from being accessible to children. "If there is, our library wasn't following it," Commissioner Jackson replied. Bishop then asked if anyone had gone to the state attorney general over the issue.
Jackson said he did not know, but said some members of the public might have contacted the attorney general. Bishop then said that citizens get up and "talk about children and sex all the time but I don't see that they are doing anything about it, and I'm sure that most of them have computers at home, have phones, and have found...internet...sexually...you know are much worse than a picture book."
Commissioner Jackson replied that he controlled the internet at his house and controls what his kids are viewing. He noted that he, as a taxpayer, was having to pay for sexually explicit books in the library. "You can sit there and talk to me all night long if you want to and tell me I'm wrong because I'm protecting children and that's fine, that's your opinion."
Bishop said, "It's a first amendment right to have them available."
Jackson said, "It's not a first amendment right to have sexually explicit material accessible to children."
Bishop countered by telling the commissioner to contact the attorney general and "get him to come down here and straighten this library out." I spoke up at that point and told Paula to contact the attorney general. She replied, "I'm okay with it [sexually explicit books in the library]."
Bishop then asserted that no one had brought books that they had checked out from the library "to show us."
Commissioner Jackson said, "I've looked at them [sexually explicit books], I've read them, and I'm disgusted..."
Bishop then said, "Oh, were you excited by them?"
The audience gasped and Commissioner Lynn Morris immediately rebuked Bishop, telling her that her time was up and, "If I hear one more word, you're out."
Bishop remained quiet for the remainder of the meeting, which ended without incident. A portion of the exchange can be heard below:
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