- January 21, 2025
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After a public protest, two rounds of applicants, and commissioners who refused to make appointments since April 2023, Manatee County’s library advisory board will reconvene by April just as it was two years ago — a five-member board with no authority to oversee the county’s book collections.
“Unfortunately, what we didn’t realize is that (the advisory board) is governed by state law,” Commissioner Amanda Ballard said. “We didn’t have that information at first. Somebody in the legal department found the statute, and so we had to revert due to that.”
Ballard’s idea to increase the board to 15 members to oversee the book collections in April 2023 was seen by some citizens and members of the library community as an attempt to control the collections, or a book ban in a different form.
The plan came with genre labels and parental consent forms and was initiated just as the Lakewood Ranch Library began choosing which books to include in its over 40,000-piece collection.
The move caused protesters to line the sidewalk outside of the Administration Building, waving signs and chanting, "Trust librarians to do their jobs."
A compromise was made.
The labels and consent forms were scrapped, and instead of a whole new board, the existing board was expanded and its duties included “collection development process review.”
It took a dozen professional librarians seven months to curate Lakewood Ranch’s collection.
Library Services Manager Tammy Parrot said it was too much to ask of volunteers to choose what was in the collection, but asking them to review the process was appropriate. The purpose of the advisory board is to recommend policies to commissioners and update them on the state of the county’s library system.
Even those opposed to the expanded board overseeing the book collection, like Sue Ann Miller, president of the Friends of the Lakewood Ranch Library, liked the idea of adding more members to the existing board, making it nine instead of five.
In a 6-1 vote in January 2024, commissioners refused to appoint any of the 13 applicants to the seven open seats. On top of the five new seats, two terms were up and one member retired.
Commissioner George Kruse was the sole vote to keep the board intact. Had commissioners chosen at least three out of the 13 applicants, as attorney William Clague said was within their right to do, a five- or nine-person board could have carried on with a quorum.
However, then-Commissioner Kevin Van Ostenbridge said the applicants weren’t “like minded” with the board.
Parrott said it was the “most robust” applicant pool she had seen since joining the county in 2019 while Ballard said it was “unfortunate” there weren’t more applicants to choose from.
Given the state’s authority, it was all for nothing. On Jan. 8, the board unanimously voted to restore the original board to its size of five members.
If Ballard has her way, the library advisory board still will be expanded.
“I’d like to see it expanded because our population is so much larger,” Ballard said. “When our library board was created (in the 1970s), we had maybe a third of the population, and the population center was completely different.”
Ballard noted that there are seats for the city of Bradenton and the islands but not for East County or North County.
Miller made the same observation but identified the areas as Lakewood Ranch and Parrish.
When the board was expanded from five to nine in April 2023, one seat was set aside to represent the Lakewood Ranch and Myakka City area. The other three seats sought out specific community members regardless of their geographic location: A homeschool parent, a parent with a child in public school and someone who holds a master’s degree in library science.
Ballard will have to start from scratch to expand the board, but she has a plan.
“It’s on our legislative priorities,” she said, “But I don’t think it’s going to happen this year because it’s a local bill and we’re already past the deadline.”
Local bills apply to a designated area versus the entire state.
Ballard said there are two options. The law can be stricken, so the county has the authority to expand the board, or the county can ask the state to expand the board.
For now, the five-member board will reconvene in either March or April. The last meeting was held Jan. 17, 2024.
Parrott is looking forward to the monthly input from citizens again. She’s not overly concerned with the size of the board because all board meetings are open to the public.
“We were starting to get more members of the public attending those meetings,” she said. “When we went on hiatus, we missed having them.”
Parrott is rebooting the board with a newly introduced orientation and handbook, which will provide an overview of library operations, branches and staff. The first few meetings will offer members a brief overview of how libraries work before they get down to business.
Two members reapplied for their seats on the board, and the county is seeking one member from the island communities.
“We’re hopeful that things will improve,” Miller said. “George (Kruse) is now chair, and I think he’s committed to putting the advisory boards back in place. He seems to want to hear from the people, and through advisory boards, that’s a voice we all can have.”
