Autauga County Commission chooses three to fill vacancies on library board

The Autauga County Commission Tuesday selected three people for the Autauga-Prattville Library Board after four members of the board resigned last month.

The commissioners nominated Ray Boles, Rachel Daniels and Logan Strock to the board Tuesday following the resignations of Susan Poteat, Wayne Lambert, Pam Fredrick and Tommy Gamper in a dispute over a previous appointment by the commission.

“Obviously it is great when the community can come in and respond,” Commission Chair Jay Thompson said. “It is great to hear all the different views. We do have a diverse community, and I think it is always great to hear everyone’s views on a topic.”

Two additional vacancies are left on the seven-member library board that the Prattville City Council will select.

The appointments became necessary after Poteat, Gamper, Fredrick and Lambert resigned last week in response to commissioners choosing to appoint Doug Darr to the library board at their Nov. 22 meeting. The commission on Nov. 22 nominated Doug Darr to the board after their initial choice, Tony Moore, withdrew himself from consideration following criticism from several of those in attendance at the meeting.

Poteat, Gamper, Fredrick and Lambert resigned in protest over the commission not consulting them on the appointment.

The library has become a battleground over access to books. After a parent complained about a book that used inclusive pronouns, local parents formed a group called Clean Up Alabama, which wants to restrict access to materials members deem inappropriate for children.

Read Freely Prattville, now Read Freely Alabama, then organized in response to the calls to restrict access to reading materials in the library.

The public dispute has involved members of the Prattville City Council and the Autauga County Commission, who oversee the appointments to the library board.

Each is responsible for three positions, with the two bodies alternating the appointment of the final board member annually.

In September, city council members narrowly voted to strike down a service contract that would have increased the age designation for materials in the young adult section to 18 years old, essentially discouraging teenagers from having access to those materials. It would have also codified terms defined as sexually explicit materials, barring anyone younger than 18 years old from checking out certain books. Finally, it would have allowed the council to strip the library of its funding at any time and for any reason.

More than 100 people attended the meeting, with some supporting restrictions on reading.

“The principle of restricted knowledge comes from God,” said Jay Jusino, a Prattville resident. “In Genesis 2:17, God commanded Adam not to eat from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, that was tree of knowledge, good and evil, so this library issue, the word ‘knowledge’ keeps coming up. There are times not to have certain knowledge.”

Angie Hayden, a spokeswoman for Read Freely Alabama, said restricting access to materials is an underhanded attempt to prevent people from reading about issues related to the LGBTQ+ community. Hayden

“I assume the bulk of you claim to be conservative, you claim that title, and I assume that all of you would say that you are fans of the constitution, the First Amendment, equality, and all of the great American values,” she said. “So where are those values as you let this group, who recently held a round table event where they discussed book burning, and said a litany of disparaging and hateful things about families like mine, why are you listening as they step over the values you are supposed to be upholding?”

Hayden referred to an event hosted by Clean Up Alabama in which members discussed their concern about the materials that were circulating in the library. In a clip of the event posted to YouTube by Read Freely Alabama, Bryan Dawson, the CEO of 1819 News, a conservative website, said that he did not support moving books he objected to to an adult section, but said he was in the “burn the books” section.

Thompson said two of the appointees are teachers who work in the Autauga County School system while a third is a business owner in the community.

The commissioners made their selections based on resumes they had received from people interested in becoming a trustee for the library board.

“I am still very disappointed in the lack of transparency in the county commission, and I am not convinced at all that there was any effort to choose neutral candidates who even have any experience with the library itself,” Hayden said.

A message was left with Hannah Rees of Clean Up Prattville seeking comment.

Alabama Reflector is part of States Newsroom, an independent nonprofit website covering politics and policy in state capitals around the nation.

This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Autauga County Commission names three to fill library board vacancies