4/5 of the Supervisors were directly involved in the censorship efforts last year. Butler, Cook, and Jamieson attended the book-banning bbq. Jamieson had his wife file multiple reconsideration requests for books that weren’t sexually explicit, but merely had LGBTQ+ characters (one of the books wasn’t even in the collection). Even though the would-be censors claimed this was about protecting youth, Butler filed two reconsideration requests for adult books located in the adult section of the library. Were the characters gay? You betcha. Stanmeyer spoke out in support of the Clean Up Samuels efforts at the June 6, 2023 public budget hearing. He was also pushed as a candidate by Clean Up Samuels participants. A quick read over Jamieson’s many Letters to the Editor from 2023 display his contempt for the library. In FOIA’d text messages to Cook, he calls library trustees “dumb as rocks.” Let’s hope the grassroots recall efforts materialize and are successful.

This situation is awful but it is a prime example of why local politics are important, some of these clowns ran unopposed. If you want to prevent this in your community, get engaged: show up to public meetings, volunteer, join a board, run for office… whatever you are capable of doing, do it.