Trying to Make Sense of the Evolution of the West Bend Library Fiasco

Are you finding it hard to keep track of everything that's been going down with regard to the West Bend Library controversy? Me too. Here are some helpful links:

• Maria Hanrahan has a nice timeline of Ginny Maziarka's library complaints (but it ends on April 11).
• We have a post highlighting some of Ginny's confusing/contradictory commentary, especially her repeated claim that this isn't about the gays...
• Michael Zimmer, a professor at UWM, has a detailed summary of the events, along with related news coverage.
• And Kristina Smithers took the time to review a number of Ginny's interviews to highlight the number of times she's called for removing books, reclassification, etc.
• New entry: check out the library's pages on the controversy here.
  

It's 1:00pm. Do You Know Where Your Book Burners Are?

Damn.

It is currently 1:09pm, and I'm missing the CCLU's prayer vigil over at city hall.

It must be my fault, since the insanely media savvy Christian Civil Liberties Union (are they getting a website anytime soon?) faxed a notice about the vigil to the Daily News this morning. I mean, we all know that the best way to promote an event is to fax a notice to the local newspaper mere hours before it happens.

I bet they have over 1,100 people there right now.

All is not lost, since the CCLU's fax also teases us with a later event where they plan to burn "the Baby Be-Bop book." Sweet. I hope I get on their fax machine rolodex, cuz I have a bottle of lighter fluid and a copy of the JC Penny catalog ready to burn (those pages selling maternity bras are morally reprehensible, BTW).

The ominous fax also mention a forthcoming federal lawsuit, which should be a gem.

[PS: You'll love the Street View image of the CCLU's address: 2634 W. Vliet St., Milwaukee, WI 53205.]

More National Media Attention

First it was local. Then it hit the blogs. Now, we've gone national!

ABC News has a story on the CCLU book burners and Ginny's related crusade. I love the opening lines:

There are 174,000 books in the West Bend Community Memorial Library, but Robert Braun, 74, of West Allis, Wis., just wants to burn one -- "Baby Be-Bop," by Francesca Lia Block.

"We will have demonstrations if they don't remove it," he said. "It has to be out of the library. If that doesn't happen, I will be out there burning."

Maybe Letterman will joke about us next....

Again with the deception and subterfuge, Ginny?

Ginny Maziarka is at it again, using heated and exaggerated rhetoric to try to rile up a controversy, and then quietly retreating with the [delete] key when caught.

This morning she posts her reflections on this Boots & Sabers post about the library board seeking an outside legal opinion. Her title is "Mayoral recall suggested over (mis)handling of City Council/Library Board", and her original leading sentence is "Seems the gang over at Boots and Sabers is on board for a mayoral recall" (emphasis added).

Problem is, no one over at B&S has called for a recall, not Owen (comment #10), not a "gang".

So, Ginny was called out on that by Maria Hanrahan (comment #8), and, in typical fashion, Ginny changed her text to indicate (still incorrectly) that "some" are calling for a mayoral recall, not a "gang."

Here you can see the original wording captured in Google's snippet from a search result:


And here again when the original post was reblogged at RightyBlogs:


Ginny, you really should place a note in your blog posts when you make substantive changes to them, especially in response to public criticism. You can't hide from Google's cache, and your actions are deceptive and undermine your credibility.

WB Library Board Wants its own Attorney?

The West Bend Library Board has scheduled an emergency meeting tonight, apparently to discuss hiring their own attorney to represent them, instead of the city attorney.

This is a bad, bad, bad idea.

Boots and Sabers has posted a response letter from the current city attorney, Mary Schanning, pointing out the numerous problems with this idea, not the least of which that the library is, in fact, a city agency that must be represented by the city attorney in any legal matters. She also points out that there's no avoiding the state's open records laws, which appears to be a motivating factor is seeking different representation.

Perhaps the board just wants to get a second opinion on some of Schanning's legal advice? That might be reasonable, depending on how much it would cost. But if they're truly looking to replace Schanning, that's a bad idea.

The open records laws exist for a reason, and the library board must respect them. And until Wisconsin passes a law allowing libraries to become indpendent entities, they must accept representation from the local city attorneys.

And while we're at it: why hasn't the library board posted any minutes from their meetings since January 6? C'mon, folks....

// Tonight, the board voted to enlist the services of Robert Feind, esq. Guess we'll see where this leads....

Citizens of West Bend, Meet Gawker!

The immensely popular (and snarky) blog, Gawker, has a post today on the WB library kerfuffle, focusing on this blog's battles with Ginny in a post titled: Small-Town Wisconsin Has Its Own Blog Wars, Thank You Very Much.

Wow.

And I'll try to take Gawker's advice to ease up on "obsessively reblogging crazy Ginny".

New WB Library Board is Less Qualified

Last night the West Bend City Council voted in 4 new, and largely inexperienced, library board members, thus continuing their irresponsible oversight of this important community institution.

Rather than having a retired University of Wisconsin-Washington County librarian and a 24-year member of the city Library Board, an attorney who served for two decades, or a retired middle school and high school reading and language arts teacher on the board, West Bend will now be served by a collection of citizens that, as Alderman Schlotfeldt puts it, have "a more diverse background" and lack degrees in education.

Is the absence of a degree in education supposed to be seen as a positive?

Included in the new batch are Jim Fowler, who works in health care and apparently is Roman Catholic (not sure how Ginny will feel about that!). Also joining the board is Judy Schaar, who works at St. Joseph's Hospital (as does Ginny!).

Alderman Richard Lindbeck agreed to replace Alderman Nick Dobberstein as the city council's representative. Hopefully Lindbeck will spend more of his time actually in West Bend so he doesn't have to abstain from controversial votes like in the past.

A couple of the alderman complained that the candidates weren't present for questioning or that they didn't have any background materials. That's a reasonable complaint, but lack of personal contact that didn't stop them from refusing to reappoint the sitting members. The council didn't ask for the outgoing board members to come in and explain their actions. They just declared that the board members' "ideology" wasn't in line with the community. How they came to that conclusion without actually talking with the board members remains a mystery. It if is so important to talk with the nominees prior to appointment, they simply should have delayed the vote until that could happen.

End result? West Bend has a new library board with less experience and qualifications. All good people, I'm sure, but it is hard to see how the community will be better served with this change. Time will tell..........

// Folks leaving comments seem to agree that the new members are solid people that should do a good job on the library board. Good to hear.....