Audience members ejected at Pinehurst Community Library Network meeting

PINEHURST — During a heated board meeting of the Community Library Network Thursday, two members of the public were ejected after making repeated exclamations over the discussion between trustees over the future of library cards for minors and the possibility of creating an adults-only access area of the library. 

The new "Children and Vulnerable Adults" law went into effect July requires institutions such as schools and libraries to review and relocate materials found to be objectionable to minors to areas not accessible to minors if a written relocation request is submitted within 60 days.   

If the institution does not act in accordance with the law, it will be forced to pay $250 to the party that filed the cause of action.  

Trustee Tim Plass said that the last meeting revealed “a lot of comments at the meeting of this being ‘1984’ and tyrannical overreach” when his proposal for an Adult Access Only Restricted Areas draft policy was negated.  

His suggestions that library staff need to “control the room” ranged from using a camera to hiring a guard to potentially firing staff if they let someone into the area who was a minor to using a lock with a combination that changes weekly and compared it to checking into a hotel and getting the Wi-Fi password.  

His concern was if there was signage would be that it would draw underage children to a restricted area and wants to ensure minors are deterred from “loitering” around adults-only access.  

“I want to go to the combination lock,” Plass said.  

Disagreements between Plass and Trustee Vanessa Robinson over what constituted “reasonable steps” over the new law and whether that exact phrasing even appeared within the language.  

After appearing at his first Community Library Network meeting last month in his new role as CLN director, Martin Walters wrote a potential directive for the network to potentially implement the board’s vision for compliance with the law, but stated multiple times that he wanted to have more guidance on what was needed.  

He said as a father to seven children, he is a strong supporter of parental rights, but that he would not state a preference with either removing all materials deemed “harmful” to children or just relocating titles as they were flagged by patrons.  

Currently, there is no set policy on where to house materials across the library system.  

He stressed to the board that the focus of librarians is to cultivate collections of the best materials for the public.  

"It’s our job,” Walters said.    

Space readily becomes a problem in smaller libraries like Pinehurst, which only had seats for 10 members of the public to observe.  

Earlier in the meeting, Pinehurst Library manager Brenda Ludwig had mentioned during a library report during the meeting that story time in the children’s section frequently is too well-attended to be confined to the section, which Walters cited as also being an issue if they are required to have a special room for adult-only access to materials.  

During the public comments at the top of the meeting Pinehurst resident Pat Williams spoke of being disturbed at the thought of books by authors like Harper Lee are in danger of being removed from being accessible to children.  

“We cannot erase our history,” Williams said.  

Jeff Lewis of Post Falls welcomed Walters and said he wanted to “dispel the myth” of special collections as being a new facet of library use and said he agreed with Trustee Karen Campbell that the library needs to “have obscene material out of minors’ reach.” 

He compared the application to local libraries like the adult movies section of Blockbuster and movie ratings or parental guidance markers on the music tracks or CDs.  

Smelterville resident Mary Sawyer said the hours for the library system being cut have become a hardship for library users, especially in the Silver Valley because of the limited access to computers in many households.  

“As a child, the library was my safe place,” Sawyer said, adding that “closing at 3 p.m. limits access for kids.”  

Her other concern lies with children being able to access what adults in the family deem acceptable, not the library system or other families. 

“Books should be open to all and it should be a parent's discretion whether they can read it or not...It is my decision what my child reads,” Sawyer said.  

Since Walters became the CLN director, he noted that there have been two books flagged by patrons, but said there needs to be a board resolution on the issue before he can act, especially with the Athol and Post Falls libraries preparing to reopen soon.   

While library staff are sorting and shelving materials, direction from a board-approved policy on this topic is needed before he will be able to act definitively.  

Vice Chair Tom Hanley proposed the CLN assess its own materials and try “segregating” materials before any more are flagged by patrons, “whether it’s 200 books or 2,000 books.”  

CLN attorney Colton Boyles said he’s not worried about the liability issues related to relocation requests because staff would have to miss multiple steps in the procedure to put them at risk.  

As issues arise, his suggestion as counsel is to bring in a professional to assess and make a recommendation within the 60 days period.     

“I’m not concerned about the timeline,” Boyles said.  

Plass asked Walters about his thoughts on having library staff patrolling an adult-access area to keep kids out.  

Walters said that society no longer requires librarians to “shush” patrons or stop them from having a drink along with a book they are reading.   

He believes the delineation is that parents/legal guardians are responsible for minors and library staff are responsible for their library collections.  

The policy for the CLN is already for patrons to follow the rules of conduct, which would also go to special collections. Walters also stressed that if the CLN determines that the adult section becomes an adult-only collection, in most of the libraries it would be difficult for kids passing by to not be seen.    

Two audience members were ejected from the meeting after repeated outbursts leaving the public section nearly empty and afterwards Robinson addressed one of their comments that there has repeatedly been no response to emails or comments sent to the board.  

She stated that everyone is being heard even if there isn’t enough time to issue a response to everyone. Whether or not she or other members of the board agree with a particular stance, public comments are being heard and read by trustees.  

“I wish people would just take it down a little bit,” Robinson said.  

The next CLN meetings scheduled are Nov. 21, 2-5:30 p.m. at the Athol Library and Dec. 19, 2-5:30 p.m. at the Post Falls Library. 

    Vanessa Robinson and new CLN director Martin Walters go through information packets Thursday at the Pinehurst Library.