The
attorney for the Christian County Library Board of Trustees has sued
the Board for allegedly violating its bylaws for election of officers
at the August 27, 2024 meeting. See HERE.
The board’s attorney, Harry Styron, is representing the board in
the suit against...the board.
Although
the original complaint named board Secretary Janis Hagen as the
plaintiff along with the “Christian County Library District,”
that has since been amended to name only the Library District, which
in essence, is the governing body—the Christian County Library
Board of Trustees.
While
officer elections are mandated in the bylaws for December, the bylaws
do not specifically prohibit officer elections at other times of the
year. Indeed, when occasional vacancies and July trustee appointments occur
the Board has held elections then, as recently as 2023.
It
makes sense that officer elections would also occur in July since the
Christian County Commission appoints library board members each year
at that time, or whenever a vacancy occurs.
However,
the lawsuit revolves around the attempt to prevent the newly-elected
board from assuming their positions.
BACKGROUND
HISTORY
At
the July 26, 2021 board meeting Secretary Janis Hagen was
absent, and a board vacancy prompted an election of officers that
included leaving the office of President vacant
until December, and to have Trustee Hagen remain in her position as
board secretary.
Listed
under Old Business, a vice-president and treasurer were elected, as
well as a member-at-large. The minutes read exactly as follows:
“Election
of Board of Trustee Officer Positions for Remainder of 2021.”
Each
of five positions is then noted, with
accompanying explanation. The full slate of officers (as well
as the member-at-large position) was listed to be elected, although
the Board decided not to elect a president due to the board vacancy.
Three positions were elected and one position remained the same.
At
the July
25, 2023
Board meeting, a president, vice-president, and treasurer were
elected. Hagen remained as secretary. The following December meeting
was a reaffirmation of the same slate.
The board attorney, therefore, has sued the board for doing what it has
already
been
doing for several years.
Why now?
At
the September 24, 2024 board meeting, the board voted to amend the
bylaws to specifically state that officer elections can occur at any time of
the year, as warranted. The
annual
mandated
election of officers will remain as
well, but
in July instead of December.
This affirms what has already been occurring in the last few years.
Video
below, scroll to about 54 minutes in for discussion of the bylaw changes.
THE
MISSOURI SUNSHINE LAW
One
other issue mentioned in the lawsuit is a purported violation of the
Sunshine law. Because
the August agenda called for a vice-president election, and not
typically
“officer elections,” the lawsuit claims the public was not
properly notified. The Missouri
Sunshine
law
states, “All
public governmental bodies shall give notice of the time, date, and
place
of
each meeting, and its tentative agenda, in a manner reasonably
calculated
to
advise the public of the matters to be considered…”
Since
officer shuffles often happen, even if only one officer is slated
to
be elected, the library staff member who wrote the agenda would have
better served the public and the Board by using the term “officer
elections.” The question then,
was the public “reasonably” advised of a board election?
Incidentally,
the library board has often
elected members to the Member-at-Large position. However, that seems
to have ended with the appointments of Diana Brazeale and Echo
Schneider in 2023.
State Media Lies about the Library, Part 3 by David Rice
Springfield News-Leader is famous for writing fiction. So, to help correct their narrative, I'm giving context to their misinformation about what happened at the Christian County Library Board.
The
Christian County Library Board of Trustees has made a first move
to restore trust and repair relations with the public. After nearly
two years of refusal to engage the issue of sexually explicit and
vulgar books being placed in the children and teen sections of the
library, the board has voted to replace President Allyson Tuckness
and to expand citizens’ ability to publicly comment.
You can
see the motion, discussion and vote here beginning at the 50:40 minute mark:
The
board action to replace Tuckness caused an immediate reaction from
not only opponents in the audience, but with a local progressive group,
U-Turn in Education, and national groups like Every Library, a group associated with the American
Library Association (which is based in Chicago), as well as the organization Book Riot.
This is the nightmare that was unleashed last evening. We are actively working today onward to develop a plan to address this insanity in a productive and meaningful way. https://t.co/fLXxGNRNvC
A
reporter was also present at the library, Susan Wade, who wrote a
story for the Springfield Daily CitizenHERE.
The board did NOT vote “to implement a system of placing stickers
on books...” as the article states.
The
board voted to have Executive Director Renee Brumett provide a list
of LGBTQ+ subject headings from the Library of Congress catalog
system, and potential book spine labels used by library vendors. The approved
motion also requested that books already challenged be
included with subject headings on the list Brumett will provide.
The board is researching the feasibility of a labeling system, it has not implemented one. Though the library does currently already use ratings for patron awareness of subject matters including genres and categorizations, this would not be a net new system change for them. More detail below.
LOCAL
CONTROL IS THE KEY
There is
a small but vocal and active group of locals who have opposed any
changes within the county library system. They are composed of mostly
progressives who are invested in a political ideology that is
contrary to Christian County’s community values. Some of them have connections with larger organizations whose ultimate goal is to overturn the existing cultural and political order.
Here is how they work. The large and well-funded national organizations find and fund small local groups, who are activated when their political and social hegemony in schools and libraries are threatened. These small groups (like U-Turn in Education, headed by local professor and activist Elizabeth Dudash-Buskirk) call on the larger organizations for help when needed. Name-calling commences. The press is activated. Petitions are drawn up. Lies are spread. Lawsuits are commenced.
It's how they operate. But once you see it, you can't unsee it. This is exactly what happened almost immediately after the August 27, 2024 board of trustee meeting.
Here are the lies: "Not only were the actions on August 7th in violation of the bylaws, the
illegal move also irresponsibly leaves the library without proper
signing authorities on the bank account."
EXAMINING THE BY-LAWS
Did the board of trustees violate their by-laws by voting in a new slate of officers? The by-laws state that board officers are elected in December. But there is nothing to exclude electing officers at other times of the year, as appropriate. Hence, at the July 2023 board of trustee meeting, a president, vice-president, and treasurer were all elected. In December of 2023, when the regular election happened, the same slate was merely re-affirmed.
Since board appointments happen in July, there is often an officer shuffle. So, elections happen at other times of the year as needed and appropriate. No one seemed concerned about check signing when a new board member was appointed last July as treasurer.
At the end of the Tuesday slate election on August 27, the executive director was (~ minute 56:40) asked to confirm if there would be a negative impact on the ability to have checks promptly signed as was implied (~ minute 51:15). She was not immediately aware of any concerns but would research to be sure.
The following Friday, August 30, the check signing process continued as normal (weekly signing had been occurring weekly on that day) without interruption. So instead of a question being asked of whether there might be an impact to financial operations to ensure they were not disrupted, false statements were made and have been found to be untrue.
MORE ON THE STICKERS
Horrors: A sticker
At the board meeting, one individual, Amy Hoogstraet, professed horror at the thought of labeling books with identifying stickers. You can see her speak during the public comment of the meeting video above.
This is an interesting angle, since the library itself advertises LGBTQ+ books with stickers as demonstrated below, and other identifying information. In fact, the library proudly displays books with such themes.
Another sticker
Libraries have often identified Christian-themed books with dove stickers. There were stickers that identified mystery books, too. And books that have been honored by one organization or another. This is not new, and it is not discriminatory.
Pronoun buttons to wear seen at the CCL
The issue is not stickers. The issue is the push to impose an agenda on children beginning as young as 0-2 years of age. The library has hundreds of books with age-inappropriate themes of sexuality, gender ideology, Critical Race Theory, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion indoctrination, and so on.
Hyped up reaction
This indoctrination is harming children, whose parents often have no idea of what is happening in their schools or what books are being laced into the libraries. Even large book publishers are getting in the local fight because it affects their bottom line. Without a pipeline from publisher to schools and libraries, it is likely many of these books would not be published and pushed on children.
Using arguments like "book banning," privacy rights, access, uncertain case law, and "free speech" these activists work in concert with local libraries and others to keep control over the content of library collections. And they are bent on selling an agenda that most people do not want their children exposed to before they are emotionally and physically capable of handling such content.
As an aside, many libraries are engaged in weeding out classic books that build character, have immense literary quality, and reinforce timeless values. You can count on one hand the number of complete Christian Scriptures in the Christian County Library's four branches. This is not a mistake.
The threat of lawsuits begins
As the furor grows regarding the audacity of a board to reassert local control of its library, it is helpful to take with a grain of salt what activists, the media and national organizations are saying about the situation. Come to the library meetings and see for yourself what is actually happening. You might be surprised to see it is quite different than its portrayal by progressive activists.
Meetings happen on the fourth Tuesday of each month, but note November and December meeting dates are different, so always check the website here to confirm. Next month's meeting is September 24, 2024, at 6 p.m. in Nixa.
Note:In the interests of full disclosure, I am related to John Garrity, the newest board member of the library board of trustees.
As residents continue to pressure the Christian County Library to relocate inappropriate books from the children and teen sections of the library, the staff and some members of the board of trustees continue to resist commonsense solutions.
At the July 23, 2024 board meeting, several things occurred that point to President Allyson Tuckness as a vector for at least part of the resistance. For some months now, the library has hired off-duty police officers to attend the public board meetings and to keep the peace. This has proven wise since there was a physical outburst by a citizen who had to be removed.
In an effort to keep tight control of the public meetings, Tuckness had enforced stringent rules for the public, including limiting speakers to 10, limiting speech time to three minutes, and attempting to limit audience reactions such as clapping or holding of signs. After she was roundly admonished by Rep. Jamie Gragg she has since allowed both clapping and signs, as well as sometimes allowing for more than 10 speakers:
Although the Missouri Public Library Trustee Manual (from the Secretary of State) states that board meetings “generally should be completed within two hours,” most Christian County library board meetings are targeted to end within one hour. They usually end on time or nearly so.
After the meeting on the 23rd, at least 12 or more citizens remained talking in the parking lot in small groups. The meeting ended a little later than usual, about 7:08 p.m. Distributed among those groups were current board of trustee members, as well as a citizen who is a constitutional coach with a nationally known organization.
At one point the security officer approached the citizens and requested they disperse. Citizens resisted and were told the library parking lot was private property. After assuring the officer the parking lot was public property the officer stepped away to consult a supervisor, only later to come back and again assert that because it was now a closed business, citizens were being asked to disperse and that it “was a little suspicious.”
“My sergeant said, ‘Yes it is a government building, but it is closed at this time, and that the president requested to disperse,'” the officer stated. So, Library Board President Allyson Tuckness was behind the manipulation of public peace officers to remove citizens from a taxpayer-funded library property.
After no less than three police cars converged in the Nixa library parking lot and conferred with citizens, it was agreed that all were peacefully assembling and had a right to be present in the parking lot, regardless of the time and the wishes of the library board president.
This kind of behavior on the part of the library board president is unacceptable. To get an idea of how she treats the public, watch July’s meeting as Tuckness refuses to allow board member Echo Alexzander to address allowing more than 10 citizens to comment. Her excuse was that the issue was not on the agenda. Later, she interacts with a citizen who had noted that the timekeeper, Tory Pegram, was starting the timer late with certain citizens, allowing them more time to speak. Forward to the public comment section at about 36:00 minutes. Tuckness specifically mentions “no raising of voices.” Watch her raise her voice when a speaker asks to reclaim time on the clock that had apparently been running while the board took pictures of one speaker’s sign. Timestamp: 43:42.
To a great extent, the friction between the public and the library board and staff is due to an ongoing refusal to address concerns and to disrespect the public by ignoring questions and pleas about child safety within the library. Having made child safety a political issue, the board and staff are now having to deal with a growing number of citizens who insist the library must address relocating inappropriate books to the adult section, where parents may decide for themselves if they want their children exposed to them.
Board President Tuckness is politically motivated enough to sic the police on citizens, including other board members with whom she may disagree. It is to the police officers’ credit that they ultimately refused to go along with her dictate.
If you want to get a parent or grandparent or taxpayer up to speed about the issues with the Christian County Library, this interview by David Rice is the perfect vehicle.
Not only does it give a short history of how Christian County citizen Mary Hernandez de Carl became involved in the movement to bring sanity to the children and teen sections of the library, but how the battle is going. Many very important points are shared.
Our publicly-appointed officials at the library continue to dig in and provide inappropriate materials to children. The staff seem to be creatures of the American Library Association and its chapter the Missouri Library Association. There is a lot of money and power behind the agenda to demoralize our children and destabilize our culture.
One person stood up.
Again, the Christian County Library Board of Trustees meets tonight at the Nixa branch at 6 p.m. Also, the Facebook group mentioned at the end, Pray for Christian County, can be found HERE. Also, We the People of Christian County was instrumental in giving a citizen's a voice in the effort to clean up the library.
David Rice writes about the Christian County Library's penchant for spending our tax dollars. This time with MOBIUS, a consortium of libraries (mostly academic) that charges for sharing books and resources. I wrote about it here.
But Rice has information from the executive director of MOBIUS, Donna Bacon. From his article:
"When I was emailing Donna Bacon, she mentioned that the future goals for MOBIUS include bringing Missouri Evergreen libraries into MOBIUS--increasing the costs to the taxpayer duplicating services we dont really need for Missouri Public Libraries."
The tendency to centralize everything under one system is neither good for individual libraries or for the taxpayer. Rice shares the numbers.
Incidentally, the CCL board of trustees meeting is tonight at the Nixa branch, at 6 p.m. If you would like to speak, you need to get there early and fill out a comment form. Agenda HERE.
If you don't keep up with your public officials, they tend to spend all kinds of your money. As Rice states, the library is ramping up to ask for yet more money to do renovations.
Taxpayers--citizens of Christian County--are unknowingly funding the American Library Association's advocacy for overthrowing our nation. Our local library, the Christian County Library, has sent Executive Director Renee Brumett, to an Ohio ALA conference this week that...well, let them speak for themselves.
"So the "Big Ideas" for public librarians to learn on the public's dime
are anticapitalism, with a side helping of racism and hate. This is
what librarians are learning as Big Ideas to kick off their day at an
ALA conference with an inspiring speaker sure to challenge their minds
and spark their creativity. Then they come back to the local
communities and implement the anticapitalism and racism and hate they
just learned. All taxpayer funded. All of it. Memberships,
conferences, travel, meals, incidentals, all of it."
Now do you see why citizens have been petitioning the CCL for over a year to no avail? When your librarians and a majority of board members are activists, courtesy of the Marxist ALA, you will get nowhere with an appeal to decency, child protection, and community values.
When the library budgets $30,000 for staff and board travel, not to mention thousands for "training" and whatever else they have stuffed into the budget under innocuous sounding categories, it's time for a review.
And it is long past time for the CCL to sever any and all ties with the American Library Association and its chapter member, The Missouri Library Association. There are alternatives to the Marxist ALA such as Kleinman's WLA.
At the February 27, 2024 Christian County Library Board of Trustees
meeting, citizens were once again faced with a board president who
appears to be setting up a narrative regarding public comments.
Quick Background
Since December 2022,
the library board has been taken to task by citizens who have
requested that books with inappropriate material be relocated out of
the children’s section of the library. This material runs the gamut
from early sexualization of children, indoctrination of children into
Marxist agendas through Social Emotional Learning, Diversity, Equity,
and Inclusion, and Critical Race Theory, and LGBTQ themes and gender
ideology. These are the same issues that parents of public school
children are facing in their school libraries and curricula.
The library board
and staff have resisted these requests. Following the far left agenda
of the American Library Association (ALA) and its member chapter the
Missouri Library Association (MLA), the local library has been nearly
unresponsive to the requests of taxpayers.
Citizens are not
giving up, and the library board is met every month with citizens
asking for recourse to protect children. It is now March 2024. Two
new trustees have been appointed and a third one will be appointed in
the coming months.
It is understandable
that the board majority and staff are weary of the citizens’
requests, when it is obvious they have no intention of protecting
children, but rather continue to provide unsuitable materials to any
child that happens upon them in the children’s section. It is no
longer a matter of unintentional exposure. These materials are being
provided in a purposeful manner to children under the guise of
“Freedom to Read".
Suppressing Free Speech at the Library
At last Tuesday's meeting, Board President Allyson Tuckness not only reiterated the standard rules
that suppress free speech and communication between citizens and
the board, but she added another new rule. Watch (prompted to the 42:45 minute mark):
So let’s get a list going:
Comments limited to 10 speakers, with three minutes each (meetings
typically end right at the one-hour mark, unless the board’s
business goes longer, as happened at the February meeting)
Will not respond to
public comments at the time they are made (has anyone ever had a
response afterward?)
The board may ask
clarifying questions, comment or take action at their discretion (but citizens cannot ask clarifying questions or comment on board comments)
Questions for staff
about library operations should be made during normal business hours (why is this a problem? Isn't the board involved in library operations?)
If a patron needs to
step outside for whatever reason, they are asked not to go beyond the
foyer outside for “safety reasons” (a narrative being pushed)
Building the Bad Citizen Narrative
For several months
now, the library has contracted to have a police officer on duty
during the board meetings. Ostensibly this is because of “heightened
emotions,” a term that Tuckness uses often when she speaks about citizen comments.
At the latest
meeting she mentioned a speaker at the December meeting, a young man
who spoke vehemently and passionately about being introduced to porn
at a young age, and its deleterious effects upon him. He begged the
board to remove such books from the children’s section of the
library.
Oddly, at another
meeting a month or so previously, a man in the audience had become
angry at the exposure of some of the materials a citizen had shared. The man slapped the materials out of a
woman’s hand and threw them at another citizen. He was escorted
from the meeting room.
But it is the young
Christian man who Tuckness mentions in the video above —with the
'heightened emotions'. This is the narrative of the Bad Citizen, the
Bad Christian that has been formed and is being pushed to the public
and perhaps other actors.
The board president asks citizens to respect the board. “We will
not tolerate raising of voices or yelling at us, at other audience
members, or Renee [the executive director]. I will give everyone a
chance, will ask them to calm down, will not take away their time,
but if it happens a second time you may be cut off.” Then she says,
“Try to control emotions and respect us the same way that we would
respect you.”
Is it the emotions
that bother some of the board members and staff, or is it the truth
being expressed in those emotions?
“Accordingly, a function of free speech under our system of
government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high
purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates
dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to
anger. Speech is often provocative and challenging. It may strike at
prejudices and preconceptions and have profound unsettling effects as
it presses for acceptance of an idea. That is why freedom of speech,
though not absolute, Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, supra,
pp. 315
U. S. 571-572, is nevertheless protected against censorship or
punishment, unless shown likely to produce a clear and present danger
of a serious substantive evil that rises far above public
inconvenience, annoyance, or unrest.”
Board
President Tuckness does not respect the citizens who speak. She
asserts she has the right to determine the tone and volume of another
citizen’s speech. Just as the socialist/progressives seek to defame those who oppose their agenda, so Tuckness is framing Christians as overly emotional, while ignoring the actual physical accosting of others on the part of a citizen opposed to relocating objectionable materials away from children.
And worst of all, Tuckness refuses to address the urgent issue of children being exposed to sexually explicit and pervasively vulgar books, even early indoctrination into alternative sexualities--there are actually board books for toddlers pushing gender ideology in the children's section of the library.
If she can't take the heat, President Tuckness should resign. The people will continue to speak.
This is a must-read article by David Rice. It details how the Friends of the Library in Christian County support the status quo, i.e., letting sexually explicit and pervasively vulgar books be accessible to children. The Marxist, godless and technocratic agenda of indoctrinating children and minors into gender ideology is at a peak right now.
The physical and emotional toll this ideology is taking upon our children will echo down the years as an era of insanity. No individual of good will can remain neutral.
Rice exposes how the Friends of the Library take books the community has donated, resells them, and then uses that money to support the status quo. The FOL president even has the audacity (perhaps ignorance) to write in opposition to HB2498, which provides for the election rather than appointment of library boards:
"This bill will also give the now-elected Board of Trustees the power to
approve or reject all library employees, programs, activities, and
volunteers."
He is advocating that un-elected employees, and not elected officials, be in charge of the library.
The Christian County Commission will be meeting on Feb. 14, at 10:30 a.m. On the agenda is discussion regarding the selection process for trustees of the library board. Apparently the process from last year needs to be reaffirmed. Please support the commission with your attendance.
The method to their madness is similar to organizations like the Missouri School Boards Association (MSBA), in which their advocacy positions are often antithetical to freedom, parental rights, etc.
Rice says, "Missouri Librarians descended on Jefferson City on Tuesday, Feb. 6th,
24, to have morning Unity meetings and then go lobby (harass) public
officials. Their purpose is laid bare in their agendas and their
priorities.
They were against Free Speech, the 2nd Amendment,
Protecting Children, lowering taxes, changing their Fiscal Year and
elections, and Limiting their Power. The one bill they supported would
make it illegal for libraries to remove books from their collection. As I
point out below, they don’t even expect this bill to pass."
Read the whole thing. Rice includes a list of bills currently in the legislature that citizens will want to read. Keep in mind that the MLA is a chapter of the American Library Association (ALA)...that hard Left organization that is beginning a slow retreat from its Marxist President Emily Drabinski.
Citizen participation is vital. The next Christian County Library Board of Trustee meeting is scheduled for February 27.
At their weekly meeting on Feb. 6, 2024, the Christian County Commissioners reaffirmed the process used last year to vet and appoint Christian County Library Board of Trustees positions.
There are approximately nine local county boards that are comprised of volunteers who serve the public in various ways, including on the library board. These are unpaid positions. Most of them are self-perpetuating in the sense that when a board position comes open each organization selects and vets their candidate and refers them to the county commission for appointment.
However, because the county library has been embroiled in controversy for more than a year, the county commissioners took charge of the process and eventually appointed two new board members in 2023.
(You may have to go to Youtube to view the video)
Citizens began petitioning the library board in December 2022 to restrict age-inappropriate, pornographic, and pervasively vulgar materials in the children and teen sections of the library.
So far, the library staff and board have resisted almost all efforts to have books moved out of the reach of minors. Monthly board of trustee meetings have seen increasing numbers of citizens commenting upon the issue and requesting relief.
Now that another appointed position is coming open (Clever area) in June, the library staff and other activists are most likely concerned that a new appointee would constitute a majority on the board and be able to make substantial changes to the library's collection policies.
The library's executive director, Renee Brumett, requested to delay the meeting to discuss the appointment process due to the MLA's Library Advocacy Day occurring on the same date. According to Presiding Commissioner Lynn Morris, the delay request came in late Sunday or early Monday before Tuesday morning's meeting.
The Commission, after discussion, decided to go forward. A motion was put forth from Eastern Commissioner Bradley Jackson, and seconded by Presiding Commissioner Lynn to continue the appointment process in perpetuity until such time as another motion was made to change the process. It passed, with Western Commissioner Hosea Bilyeu voting no.
The commissioners heard from citizens who were not happy with the process or the fact that the commissioners voted to continue the procedure from last year without the library staff being present. For the record, there are sixty employees in the Christian County Library system. Surely, not all of them were at the Library Advocacy Day or at work.
Let's be clear, the dissent is coming from people who want to continue with the library as it has been and continues to be--a place where children are being exposed to age-inappropriate books of a sexual nature, as well as indoctrination in Marxist ideology through DEI and CT.
They know that when the commissioners appoint another trustee, that the board may decide to make changes.
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