Texas county convenes meeting to discuss the possible closure of its more than 100-year-old library system

LANO, Texas — The fate of the small-town Texas library system will be decided Thursday by Lano County commissioners to decide whether to follow a judge’s order to restore banned books or shut down the library altogether. was opened for

But before the commissioner could make a decision, local residents were given two minutes to weigh in at an emergency meeting. Some have denounced and dismissed some claims in the community that the subject book was pornography as nonsensical claims.

“These books are not pornography,” Suzette Baker, a librarian who works for the Kingsland branch of the system, told the commissioner.

Jeff Scoggins paused the livestream of the conference and warned commissioners that they would hear it from voters if they bowed to the “minorities” pushing for library closures.

Scoggins warns that this is a thorny issue for Lano County and “potentially a domino effect” for other Texas counties.

but There are already signs that all three divisions of the library system, which has served generations of Llano residents, may be closed. for almost a century.

“I’m really worried they’re going to close the library,” Layla Green Little, one of the seven people who sued the county for banning the books, told NBC ahead of the meeting. told the news.

“Our library system was started over 100 years ago by a group of women from Lano County who gathered by the river to read,” Little added. “That was the humble beginning of our library system, and if they shut it down, it would definitely be the end of an important part of our county’s history.”

Ominously, when the commissioner scheduled a special meeting, the first item on the agenda was “to continue or cease operations” at the library.

Also, as part of the discovery of the lawsuit filed against the county on April 25, 2022, Little and other anti-book ban opponents are vice-chairmen of the Llano County Library Advisory Board and allies of the Commissioner. Yes, and will be sent to one of your supporters.

In part, “The judge said that if we lost the injunction, he would shut down the library because he wouldn’t put porn back in the children’s section!”

The judge Wallace was referring to is Llano County Judge Ron Cunningham. And neither Wallace nor the judge called NBC News for further clarification.

In the text message, Wallace did not clarify which books she or the judge considered “pornography.”

But the controversy has driven a wedge in this mostly rural county about 75 miles west of Austin. And when the commissioners get together, it can get hot.

Little and other book ban opponents have urged other residents of Lano County to attend a special meeting and express their support for the struggling library system that serves the county’s 20,000 people.

However, before the meeting began, residents who wanted to keep the library open complained that they were being denied the opportunity to address the Commissioner in their room, known as the Commissioner’s Court, which holds only 35 people.

Sunrise Beach United Church pastor Kevin Henderson, who wants the library to open, said he went to the county clerk Wednesday to secure a seat in court so he could address the commissioner, but was denied.

But when he arrived at the commissioner’s court Thursday morning, he came across a group of people who supported the book ban gathering in the shade of a tent set up outside, telling him they were being given time to speak. I found out

“I don’t have a number to sit in court,” Henderson said.

Inside the tent, Jason Herron, 39, denied they had been given preferential treatment and said they had arrived shortly after dawn to pray.

“We are not propagandists, we are advocates for education,” said the father of three.

An emergency meeting in Llano County last week saw U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pittman suing Cunningham, Wallace, the Llano County Commissioner, and other members of the Library Board for removing books from Little and six others. It was convened after passing a ruling in favor of the residents of

Residents claimed that the removal of the book without notice or ability to appeal violated their First Amendment rights to free speech and their Fourteenth Amendment rights to due process.

“Defendants allege they are hunting to eradicate ‘pornographic’ material,” the resident said in the complaint. This is an excuse. None of the books targeted by the defendants are pornographic. ”

Books removed from library shelves by Lano County officials include critically acclaimed works for teens and older readers, such as Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste: The Origins of Our Grievances . “They Called Themselves The KKK: The Birth Of An American Terrorist Group” by Susan Campbell Bartoletti. Graphics by Tillie Walden Her novel “Spinning”. “In the Night Kitchen” by Maurice Sendak. and Robbie H. Harris’s “It’s Perfectly Normal: Body Change, Growth, Sex, and Sexual Health.”

However, four children’s picture books containing “ridiculous themes and rhymes” were also banned.

They were “Larry the Farting Leprechaun”. “Gary the Goose and his gas loose”; “Freddy the Farting Snowman”; and “Hart’s Harvey farts too much”, according to complaints.

And three books from Dawn McMillan’s “I Need a New Butt!” The series was also removed from the library, the complaint states.

Last year, an elementary school assistant principal in Mississippi was fired after reading “I Need a New Butt!” to the sophomore class. reason? Because the book used words like “ass” and “fart” and included cartoon images of children’s butts.

Suzanne Gamboa reported from Llano and Corky Siemaszko from New York City.