Lake Luzerne’s new library board looking to define its role

Fighting mascot ruling cost Cambridge more than $100,000

By Ken Tingley

The Rockwell Falls Library in Lake Luzerne scheduled a performer named Scarlett Sagamore to read to children during a Saturday morning story hour last month.

It led to outrage among some in the community.

You see, Scarlett Sagamore is a drag queen. That made the event controversial and why people around Lake Luzerne showed up to protest. I suspect some of them needed GPS to find the library, but that’s just me being cynical.

Those protesting seem to believe drag queens and pedophiles are synonymous; that the event was an attempt to sexualize young children and influence their future identity.

The way I understand the story-hour concept, it allows children to be exposed to different types of people. The concept makes sense, but having a drag queen might be an extreme use of the concept, especially in rural areas of upstate New York.

Nevertheless, I don’t believe the folks at the Rockwell Falls Library were putting children in danger.

After the library board postponed the event so it could review the event further, the performer was no longer interested.

Board president Janet Silburn seemed to believe that would be the end of it on Thursday night, but I think this is just the beginning for the board at Rockwell Falls. It may be the front lines for libraries all across the region.

There was a vote this past week with five candidates running for two seats on the Rockwell Falls board. Seats on library boards are usually not contested. There is often a little arm-twisting to get someone to run.

Not so in Lake Luzerne where 713 people voted in a town of 1,400.

Kathleen Jones received the most votes with 187 and Josh Jacquard, the pastor at the Victory Bible Baptist Church in Porters Corners, was next with 179 to secure seats.

Jacquard was a vocal opponent of the drag queen event and in the lead-up to the election, Jacquard posted on his Facebook page, “We see through their dishonesty and we see the agenda they are trying to push.” He then urged people to vote for him for a board seat.

It appears “their” is a reference to the current Rockwell Falls library board. It is not clear what “their” agenda is, but I’m sure you can guess.

Silburn said the new board would try to have a “more comprehensive proposal process” before approving events while also “actively seeking a lot of diversity.”

The two newcomers were not shy in their initial board meetings.

Jacquard said he would like the board to perform background checks on anyone scheduled for a children’s event. That of course would come with a monetary cost.

Jones said that library should promote awareness of issues such as gender identity and gender expression. She proposed having a Pride celebration to welcome members of the LBGTQA community.

It started a spirited back and forth between the two new board members.

“Are they not already welcomed at the library right now,” Jacquard asked.

“Apparently not,” Jones answered in reference to the drag show story hour controversy.

And they were off. Back and forth.

Jones eventually proposed a Pride event as part of a diversity effort. Jacquard didn’t seem to think it was needed.

It will be interesting to see what the library settles on regarding a policy. My guess is that most library events are not as well attended as the recent board meetings.

I can’t help but wonder if some of the regular events might also come under scrutiny.

On June 21, the Mystery Book Club is being held at the library. More often than not, these mysteries involved murders and mayhem.

On June 28, the Adult Poetry Chat is scheduled and as we all know, some poetry can get pretty racy. We know Shakespeare can be especially bold.

At the moment, the library board is only concerned about having a policy for future events for children, but it is not much of a leap to see the conversation evolve into content about books in general.

I hope I’m wrong, but don’t be surprised if that is what happens.

Ultimately, the new board in Lake Luzerne will be working to define the role its library will play in its community and in the education of children. And maybe the education of adults.

Cambridge legal bills

In most cases, legal bills are an unavoidable part of a school district’s budget. But not when it comes to Cambridge.

There was some good reporting by Evan Lawrence in The Post-Star using the Freedom of Information Law to uncover the legal expenses associated with fighting for its Indian mascot.

Lawrence found Cambridge has paid out about $51,000 to lawyers to fight the mascot ruling by the state and there are still bills to come. It spent another $50,000 of taxpayer money for mediation that failed because mascot supporters were suspicious of it. Lawrence wrote that mascot supporters claimed the professional mediators were manipulating the process to support a “liberal agenda.”

That’s over $100,000 spend to keep a school mascot. That money would buy a lot of sports equipment.

For me, the most egregious part of Lawrence’s reporting was that neither the superintendent or any members of the board of education responded to a request by Lawrence for comment because  the “board discourages members from speaking individually to the press.”

In other words, the board discourages free speech.