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Over the last two years, the future of Huntington Beach’s library has been debated as city officials grapple with budget shortages and what books should be available to kids.
But there still aren’t many concrete answers on what the future looks like amidst multiple ballot initiatives, a lawsuit and a mandate from city council members to find possible cuts in all departments ahead of an expected $8 million budget shortfall.
Those questions continued to play out at a rally inside city hall on Tuesday afternoon, where Mayor Pat Burns and Councilmembers Gracey Van Der Mark and Chad Williams lambasted a new lawsuit from the ACLU and First Amendment Coalition over their library’s restricted section.
“This whole thing is stupid,” Burns said, standing in front of a poster filled with photos about sex from books they claimed were in the library. “It’s based on misinformation and lies.”
Right now, there are seven books kept in the restricted section of the library, which children under the age of 18 cannot access without a parent’s permission amid concerns about sexual content in the books.
To see the full list, click here.
More books were initially moved to the restricted section, but were later removed and put back on standard shelves after a second review.
“Not a book has been banned, they’re all in our libraries,” Van Der Mark said during Tuesday’s rally. “If the state refuses to protect our children we will do it ourselves.”
In their lawsuit, the ACLU and others argued the city’s restricted shelf violates state law and limits teenagers’ abilities to explore topics without their parent’s oversight.
To read a copy of the suit, click here.
“Freedom of thought begins with the freedom to read, said David Loy, legal director of the First Amendment Coalition, in a statement last Thursday. “The government has no business standing in the way of young people as they grow into adulthood by reading about the diverse experiences of the world around them.”
Williams said the city would fight for parents to control what books their kids had access to as he led chants of “USA” from inside the council’s meeting chambers on Tuesday.
“They’re about to find out that in Huntington Beach we fight different,” Williams said. “May God bless America, may God bless Huntington Beach.”
Erin Spivey, a former librarian who quit her job at the city’s library over the restricted section and is part of the lawsuit against them, said the city council doesn’t understand how libraries work.
“When minors come into the library, they need to come with a parent or guardian to get their library card, and the library doesn’t allow children under 11 to be in the library unaccompanied,” Spivey said in a Tuesday phone interview. “That’s just not something that happens.”
She encouraged council members to spend more time at the library to see how daily operations work.
“Librarians don’t just go around handing people books on health or sex education,” Spivey said. “If a patron requests a book, it’s their job to help them find it. Gracey doesn’t seem to understand how that all works.”
On Tuesday night, city council members also unanimously agreed to put two voter initiatives up for a special election in June aimed at overturning several of their ideas for the library.
One of the initiatives would end the restricted section and a proposed book review committee.
While the committee was approved, it has never actually been created, with city spokesperson Jennifer Carey saying city staff are still unsure how it would work.
“City staff continues to work through the internal processes of establishing the committee and also how the committee would be integrated in the existing book review system in place,” Carey wrote.
[Read: Huntington Beach Creates Panel To Decide What Books Go Into City Library]
The second initiative that would block any attempt to privatize the library’s management.
While city council members debated possible privatization last June, they ultimately opted not to move forward after strong public pushback.
[Read: Huntington Beach Library Privatization Efforts Fizzle Out After Public Pushback]
Spivey, who’s also a Huntington Beach resident, said she signed onto the lawsuit because she wants her hometown to keep those kinds of books available.
“I really love my city, for better or worse,” Spivey said. “I left (the library job) because I wasn’t going to be part of an organization that censors books.”
Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org.
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