Anti-library levy applicant Noelle Johnson appointed to Great Falls library board

The Great Falls City Commission voted 3-2 to appoint an anti-library levy applicant to the Great Falls Public Library board, following spurious community discussion and debate on Tuesday.

The board recommended two candidates for the openings after going back and conducting interviews for all 11 applicants upon the commission’s request. But the commission decided to appoint just one of those recommendations, Anne Bulger, who has served on the board since 2018.

Instead of supporting recommended school librarian Hoppy Hopkins as well, the commission voted in favor of appointing former teacher Noelle Johnson, who stated her anti-library levy position on her application.

At Tuesday night’s meeting, some members of the public questioned the commission’s request the board conduct interviews only to disregard its recommendations.

“I just think that everybody ought to grow a pair and go with what you asked for,” said resident Alice Klundt.

Mayor Bob Kelly and some members of the public expressed dismay Tuesday night at seeing politics inserted into a process and position that are typically apolitical. Others, including Commissioner Rick Tyron, said in a small town everyone knows people’s political affiliations already.

This vote comes in the run up to a municipal election next month and featured a text and call campaign from some constituents pushing for Johnson. Although the meeting was fraught, one political expert in the state said politics has long existed on local boards and this isn’t new, even in this political climate.

The heated discussion in Great Falls takes place within a larger national narrative rife with conspiracies over public libraries, and the content available to the public there, with misconceptions about inappropriate material being provided to minors laced in arguments to clamp down on alleged obscene material.

All three commissioners who voted in favor of Johnson are on the municipal ballot this November, though Commissioner Eric Hinebauch, who brought the motion to select her, told the Daily Montanan the decision might actually hurt him politically in the race. However, he’s hoping in the end, this move will help bring the temperature down on a heated local issue.

The $1.5 million library mill levy, which will maintain staffing levels at the library, passed earlier this summer after many campaigned against it. Johnson said in her application she was “one of the 48% who voted against the library mill levy, and that portion of the community (nearly half) should have a presence on the board). An anti-levy billboard in town prior to the election read in all caps: “NO PORNOGRAPHY, NO DRAG QUEENS, NO TAX INCREASE.”

Johnson did not respond to voicemails requesting comment in time for publication.

Political analyst and University of Montana Professor Lee Banville said all boards are at some level political, and local boards have had this friction for decades.

“She’s arguing as an advocate for the public who’s not being heard on that board,” Banville said. “It’s a fairly typical sort of political way to position yourself.”

He said by signaling the way she did in her application, she’s aligning herself on one side of a nationwide stance on materials in public libraries.

“It’s not a new phenomenon,” he said. “In a sort of hyper-partisan sort of environment that we find ourselves in, suddenly, what would very often be a very sleepy appointment to a library board becomes a statement one way or the other about what is the appropriate material that our community should have access to.”

Hinebauch, who’s running for reelection on the commission, said his hope was that if someone who was opposed to the levy got on the board, they would see the reality of what’s going on at the library.

“It might backfire on me, but I am hoping this can help kind of cool things down a little bit and give somebody that maybe didn’t necessarily support the levy some perspective on what they do in our community,” he said.

Johnson is filling a vacancy on the commission for a term ending in June 2024, rather than a full five-year term.

“If it’s kind of a disaster and a lot of animosity at these board meetings, then we can begin taking a look at it in June,” Hinebauch said. “But I think it’s worth it to try to try to bridge some of these divides we have in this community.”

Commissioner Tryon, also running for reelection, as well as Commissioner Joe McKenney, a candidate for mayor and former Republican legislator, said the election didn’t factor into their votes.

McKenney said he liked Johnson’s background as an entrepreneur and she could bring a different experience to the table. He said the commission reappointed Bulger, someone who had served for five years already, and saw the other recommendation as “more of the same” and wanted a fresh perspective.

“When you put your finger up on the wind on this one, it’s blowing in every direction,” McKenney told the Daily Montanan. “No matter what I did, many people are gonna dislike it.”

Commissioner Susan Wolff, who isn’t up for reelection until 2025, said the candidates on the commission definitely had more eyes on them. She spoke to the flood of texts and calls she received prior to the meeting, asking for the commission to appoint candidates that weren’t the recommended candidates, including Johnson.

“For many, it was from a script,” Wolff said.

During the meeting, resident Jeni Dodd voiced frustration, saying the commission was simply “rubber stamping” recommendations from the library board.

“I think the city should do away with board and committee recommendations for all boards,” she said. “It just perpetuates self-selected crony boards and committees, and we need new representation on these boards and committees in Great Falls.”

After Dodd spoke, others started endorsing Johnson, speaking to her career as a teacher and someone who would “do well representing the people.”

After the first series of public comments, Kelly said he was disappointed to see political affiliations on some applications.

“Politicization coming into our community — I’m very sad to see it, but it’s gonna happen,” Kelly said. “To see political affiliations on behalf of a library application is daunting and unwelcome in my mind.”

Tryon said he looked back on the voting record of the library board and said they voted unanimously close to 100% of the time.

“That says to me that we would do well to have another voice on that board, somebody with a different point of view than just voting yes, every time for everything,” Tryon said. “We want diversity, we want, you know, all viewpoints represented at the library with books, et cetera. But somehow we don’t want diversity in all points represented on the library board. And I think that’s wrong.”

Board Chair Whitney Olson told the Daily Montanan the voting record isn’t the full story — the board holds discussions and doesn’t always agree on topics before voting, but it comes to a consensus.

She said they’ve had to make a lot of hard decisions over the years, sometimes choosing what to do with millions in grant funding, and minutes don’t always reflect the breadth of conversations, as staff hasn’t had the time to be so thorough.

“We’ve been getting by with bubblegum and duct tape,” Olson said.

Hinebauch made the motion to select Johnson as opposed to Hopkins, which was followed by concerns from the public over Johnson’s political affiliations.

Resident Peggy O’Leary said it was disrespectful to the library board, which on the commission’s request after a rule change this summer, advertised the position and conducted interviews of candidates. The interviews, part of the new process, were public meetings but no commissioners attended.

Tremper said she believed if the commission wanted to change the process, as Kelly and Tryon said earlier in the meeting, it should be left to the upcoming commission that will be seated in January.

“To upend the process … after the members of the library board conducted these public meetings and these interviews, I think is inappropriate,” O’Leary said.

Hopkins sat in the audience at the Great Falls Civic Center expecting a different outcome, and said it was almost surreal to watch it play out, saying he felt like a pawn.

“It could have been any of the other nine applicants who were sitting with their mom that night, it would have happened to them,” he said. “It was a good lesson in civics.”

This story was initially published by The Daily Montanan, a nonprofit newsroom and part of the States News organization, covering state issues. Read more at www.dailymontanan.com.

This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: Anti-library levy applicant appointed to Great Falls library board