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The Limestone County Commission announced Tuesday that it would be suspending all funding to the Athens-Limestone Public Library until it is allowed to make two appointments to the board.
The city and county agreed months ago to reconstitute the board to have appointees from both governing bodies after complaints from county citizens that they were not being properly represented.
The county has not made any appointments to the board for at least 15 years, allowing the Athens City Council to make all appointments to the board.
“Shane Black, the city’s attorney, and our attorney, Drew Dill, have been working back and forth on this for the past few months,” Commission Chairman Collin Daly told The News Courier. “There has been a third-party attorney hired, and we’ve got to wait until all of that gets cleared up. It may be a few months, but we are working through it together.”
The third-party attorney was hired by Moms for Liberty, which represents several of the individuals complaining about lack of representation.
The complaints have sometimes alleged wrongdoing by the library—the library did send in outdated policies to the Alabama Public Library Service that errantly described the library board as a joint library board.
The APLS executive board decided there was nothing that needed to be done on their end, however, and that the outdated policy wouldn’t negate the library receiving state aid.
Documentation shows that the both bodies agreed to let the city make the library appointments in lieu of having a joint board.
The board composition became the target of the citizens who are also seeking policy changes at the library to remove books for minors that they believe are inappropriate.
The library will still receive its full funding from the county once the joint board is formed.
