By Shereen Siewert | Wausau Pilot & Review
As the debate over public reading materials continues across the country, a local supervisor is proposing pulling millions in funding from the Marathon County Public Library, forming a group to provide new community standards and abolishing the county library system altogether.
In an email sent to library officials, County Administrator Lance Leonhard and Human Resources, Finance and Property Committee Chair John Robinson, Dist. 23 Supervisor David Baker is asking to remove more than $2.8 million in funding for a library HVAC system from the proposed budget. The funds were part of the American Rescue Plan Act. Baker wants the funding removed to “allow us time to make a more informed decision.
Baker then goes on to say he is considering forming an “unofficial Library Community Standards Alignment” work group to help resolve differences between the library board and some residents “concerned with the direction of the Marathon County Library.” One of the options to consider, Baker said, is abolishing the County Library system altogether and transfer control to each municipality to “follow their respective community standards.”
But the legal implications of such a move could be significant and the argument echoes the same themes that emerged in last year’s budget sessions. Then, several supervisors spoke publicly and in emails about their dissatisfaction with the library board’s decision to retain materials they personally objected to and discussed ways to pressure the library board to change their policies.
Oct. 31, 2022, for example, Supervvisor Tony Sherfinski suggested a 50 percent reduction in library funding in a response to a citizen’s suggestion that the board has “the influence and power to do something to apply pressure with the purse strings.”
“…One option that we always have is that of funding. I suggest that we use it and apply a significant reduction in funding for the library,” he wrote, in an email to 23 of the 38 county board supervisors.
Supervisor Craig McEwen, whose 2022 proposal to cut the MCPL’s funding by $69,000 ultimately passed, spoke last year about the institution’s “pornographic materials” and said he wished “the Marathon County Library Board would have taken this serious before we had to start talking about their budget.”
Another supervisor, Dist. 17’s Jennifer Aarestad, said the issue came down to “protecting our children” and said if only the library would “come to an agreeable compromise on this issue, it will make it easier for the County Board to vote in favor of the proposed library budget.”
Sherfinski, who represents Dist. 16, also urged supervisors to “remember” that “we’re a policy-setting board” and “act accordingly.”
“Removing books—based solely upon content and viewpoint—violates the First Amendment,” a Jan. 23, 2023 report from von Briesen & Roper, S.C., declares. “Similarly, deciding to reduce [Marathon County Public Library] funding—based upon MCPL’s refusal to remove books challenged on the basis of content and viewpoint—violates the First Amendment,” which protects the right of both adults and children to receive information.
In their summary, the attorneys caution supervisors to “separate their personal and doctrinal views from their political actions, and consider their constitutional and ethical obligations to the people of Marathon County.”
Baker himself sent a request Oct. 18, 2022 to Marathon County Corporation Counsel Mike Puerner for a legal opinion as to whether supervisors could pass an ordinance prohibiting the library from lending certain materials in their collection Puerner’s response made it clear that a county board does not have that authority.
Wausau Pilot & Review reached out to Robinson, Baker, Puerner, Leonhard and several library officials seeking comment on Monday. Of those, Leonhard responded, but declined to comment.
Baker, in his Oct. 6, 2023 email, said the funding reduction request is made “in alignment with the goal of the budget process proceeding as smoothly as possible.”
“Hopefully, the Library Board and community members are able to reach a mutually agreeable resolution, but removing the Library Chiller/HVAC system from the budget discussion would provide additional time to reach this resolution,” he wrote.
In 2022, the Marathon County Board did slash library funding, though only a portion of the $365,000 proposed by Supervisor Chris Dickinson, whose emails and comments from last year’s controversy revealed a serious lack of understanding about First Amendment issues. In his comments calling for the funding reduction, Dickinson specifically pointed to the library’s “slow response to the books controversy” and said the “County Board’s main influence and control on the library is financial, it’s on the budget. We do have the appointments of some members to that, but obviously, it’s in the budget. . . . the controversy surrounding the books within the library exists and it needs a resolution.”
And in a Nov. 14, 2022 email to then-MCPL Board President Sharon Hunter, the supervisor doubles down on his threat to consider funding issues if a book was not removed.
“It has come to my attention that you have denied a request to remove a book. If that is the case I look forward to engaging in further dialog next year during budget time, Have a good night,” he wrote.
Consequently Hunter, along with Dist. 1 Supervisor Michelle Van Krey, were removed form their roles on the library board when county supervisors rejected their reappointment.
The von Briesen report cited case law validating their conclusion that such retaliatory actions put the county at risk of a lawsuit that would be difficult to defend. Courts are firm that if the government’s decision to censor public library materials is substantially connected to content or viewpoint discrimination, that conduct violates the First Amendment.
“Additionally, if government actors dangle money in exchange for speech regulation or restriction, courts will not give public libraries a free pass; public libraries remain obligated to comply with the First Amendment even if politicians do not,” the report states.
“Removing MCPL books or reducing MCPL funding—based on objections to the content or viewpoints expressed in MCPL books—violates the First Amendment and would subject MCPL and Marathon County to litigation that would be difficult and costly to defend,” the attorneys’ conclusion reads.
