The Eagle Public Library’s board of trustees last month voted to relocate two dozen books after deliberating, behind closed doors, about whether the material was appropriate for children. 

On Sep. 18, Eagle’s trustees moved 21 books to the adult section of the library and placed another three behind the library desk, requiring that patrons ask staff to access them. The vote came after trustees discussed the books in an executive session, a portion of the meeting shielded from public view. 

Relocating two dozen books in one fell swoop could represent the largest single action restricting minors’ access to library material since House Bill 710 went into effect July 1. The legislation allowed patrons to notify their library of material believed to be “harmful” to minors, and the bill gave patrons the right to sue the library if the challenged material isn’t removed from circulation or moved to an adult section of the library. Eagle’s decision last month showcased how this new process is playing out — and whether it’s transparent.

Eagle trustee Brian Almon told Idaho Education News that the decision followed  “multiple requests for materials to be relocated.” EdNews obtained redacted copies of those requests through a public records request and found that all but one of the relocations stemmed from complaints filed on a single day in July. 

Trustees voted, 3-1, to relocate 24 of the 25 books evaluated during last month’s meeting. The outlier was not in the library’s collection. Almon along with trustees Kelsey Taylor and Sarah Hayes supported relocating the books. Trustee Kirsten Lewis opposed the motion, while board chair Candice Hopkins was absent from the September meeting. 

Almon, a conservative political writer with ties to the Idaho Freedom Foundation, wrote about the decision on his website, although he offered few details of the discussion, saying he couldn’t share what went on during the executive session. 

“Some of the 25 books we evaluated were especially heinous, while others seemed to use a lot of profanity and sexual expressions in the dialogue,” he wrote for the Gem State Chronicle. 

House Bill 710 creates new process for challenging books

House Bill 710 directed public libraries and school libraries — public and private — to implement procedures allowing patrons to challenge content they consider “harmful” for minors. A majority of GOP lawmakers supported the bill and Republican Gov. Brad Little signed it into law. 

According to the statute, a book, movie or other content is considered “harmful” when it depicts nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement or sado-masochistic abuse in a way that “appeals to the prurient interest” or is “patently offensive to the prevailing standards in the adult community.” And “sexual conduct” includes any act of homosexuality. 

The Eagle Public Library is operated by the city, as opposed to some other libraries that are operated by independent library districts. And Eagle’s library is governed by a board of trustees, who are appointed by the mayor and city council and oversee one library building, located near downtown. 

To comply with HB 710, Eagle offers two written forms that patrons can file to challenge material in the library’s collection: 

• A “request for review of library materials,” which asks staff to analyze the material and determine whether it meets the criteria in the library’s collection policy,
• And a “written notice to relocate library materials,” which notifies library staff and trustees of material that the patron believes is “harmful to minors,” per Idaho code. 

Idaho libraries had processes in place for patrons to challenge books prior to HB 710. But the bill added a cause of action, granting patrons the right to sue if “harmful” material is accessible to minors.

Potential plaintiffs in a lawsuit must file a written notice to have standing, per the new law, and library officials have 60 days after the notice is filed to take action on the complaint before the patron can take them to court. 

Most written notices filed on a single day

In response to EdNews’ public records request, the city of Eagle provided 30 complaints, filed with the library since July 1.

Twenty-six were written notices, alleging a “harmful” book was accessible to children in the library, and four were relocation requests. All but three of the written notices were filed on July 24, and the board of trustees later voted to relocate each of them.

It’s unclear who filed the July notices. The city withheld the names, addresses and contact information of the complainants.

That’s unusual among Treasure Valley libraries — others have previously released unredacted copies of similar complaints asking library officials to reconsider whether a book is appropriate. The Boise Public Library posts unredacted complaints online while the Nampa Public Library board of trustees last month attached an unredacted complaint to a meeting agenda.

But Eagle officials cited an exemption in Idaho’s public records law that allows libraries to withhold information that would reveal the identity of a patron “checking out, requesting or using an item from a library.”

EdNews on Thursday asked the city to reconsider withholding the identities of the complainants.

Meanwhile, the city received another seven complaints on various dates since July, and some books attracted multiple filings. “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” by Jesse Andrews, for instance, was the subject of three complaints. One person who filed a reconsideration request pointed to about a dozen passages in the 2012 book with profanity and sexual scenes.

“This is not a book that our teens or youth should have access to,” they wrote on the reconsideration form. “This book is harmful to minors, please move it to the adult section.”

While Eagle’s reconsideration form asks complainants to cite “objectionable” portions of a book, the written notices do not. They simply ask the complainant to affirm that they believe the material is “harmful” to minors and that they’re asking the library to relocate it to a section designated for adults.

Almon in his column wrote that library trustees rely on third parties, “including publishers, review journals, subscription services or websites like Moms4Liberty or BookLooks,” to read the books in libraries.

“I will continue to do the best I can as a trustee of the public library to make it a safe and welcoming place for children,” he wrote. “I have been a cardholder of the public library since I was ten, and it has always been a positive place for me and so many others. Yet keeping the sickness of our society off its shelves is going to take a lot more work than many of us thought.”

City attorney defends closed-door meeting

Idaho’s open meeting law requires that government bodies conduct their business in public, with just a handful of exceptions.

The law allows for executive sessions when officials are discussing the hiring and firing of public employees, the acquisition of property, sealed public records and certain trade negotiations, among other business. It also allows executive sessions when officials confer with an attorney about pending litigation or about “controversies…imminently likely to be litigated.”

The latter is the circumstance that Eagle trustees cited to justify their executive session to discuss the relocation requests. All four trustees present at last month’s Eagle library board meeting voted in favor of going into an executive session. Taylor, Hayes and Lewis did not respond to questions about the executive session, and Almon referred EdNews to Villegas and Eagle’s deputy city clerk Holly Csencsits.

Villegas is an attorney with the Meridian law firm Borton-Lakey, which contracts with the city of Eagle. He told EdNews that written notices, required for a potential plaintiff to have standing for a cause of action against a library, constitute a “precondition” to filing a lawsuit. And Eagle’s written notice form requires filers to acknowledge that they believe the library material is “harmful,” per the statute, and that they’re asking the library board to relocate the material within 60 days.

“They’re going in executive session to get legal advice as to how to handle that matter,” Villegas said by phone.

Idaho has 151 public libraries, and each governing board might be handling the new book challenge process differently. But Eagle’s relocation decision appears to be the most consequential so far.

By contrast, the Boise Public Library has received one complaint about a book since the law went into effect. The facetious request, filed under a fake name, asked to move a copy of the Bible to an adults-only section of the library.

Boise didn’t have that version of the Bible in circulation and trustees denied the request — during a public meeting.