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The Prattville City Council appeared set Tuesday to make two appointments to the Autauga-Prattville Public Library board after months of inaction on one open vacancy.
At the end of November, control of the board effectively rotated back to the city as the one-year appointment of Doug Darr by the Autauga County Commission ended on the final day of November. That seat is designed to oscillate back and forth between the two governing bodies so that each has the majority of appointees for exactly one year.
Councilor Tommy Merrick made the motion Tuesday night to reappoint Darr to his seat on the board, despite originally being the county’s pick. Councilor John Chambers seconded that motion.
But Councilor Marcus Jackson cut in to share concerns and questions he had received earlier in the day about both appointments.
“I ask if we can possibly table this to the next meeting and get some more information,” Jackson said.
Jackson formally moved to table the appointment and the council unanimously agreed to put Darr’s appointment off until the next meeting on Dec. 17.
When the next motion came forward from Merrick to appoint Don Bethel to the board, the council followed the same motions: Chambers seconded, Jackson moved to table and the council unanimously agreed.
Prior to that action, citizen Jackie Nix with Read Freely Alabama called on the city not to make the appointments.
“Up until now, the city’s kept its hands relatively clean regarding the library,” Nix said. “That changes with agenda items four and six. With the appointment of Doug Darr, the city becomes complicit in the destruction of our public library … You’re no longer a bystander, you become an accomplice.”
It was Darr’s appointment that started a chain of events that led to a radical change in the makeup of the board, leading to policy changes, the termination of a library director and multiple employees, and a lawsuit.
The Autauga County Commission appointed Darr outside of its longstanding tradition of appointing a nominee recommended by the library board. While the commission had the right to do so, it angered library board members who had for months dealt with book challenges and accusations that they were grooming kids or exposing them to pornography.
“After the last county board meeting and some decisions made pertaining to the library, I do not feel comfortable serving on the Library board,” longtime board member Wayne Lambert told APR after his resignation.
The others on the board resigned soon after, spurring the county to make even more nominations including Ray Boles, who became chair; Rachel Daniels, who became vice chair; and Logan Strock, who became treasurer.
While the county said they did not intend to stack the board one way or another, their appointees quickly moved to change policies to align with Clean Up Alabama’s goals of prohibiting LGBTQ+ content from youth sections. The policies were written with the assistance of Laura Clark, an attorney that had been a critic of the previous board allowing LGBTQ+ materials. The new board, including Darr, voted to hire Clark as its attorney.
Darr also voted to terminate Director Andrew Foster when the board claimed he had released confidential information and violated criminal law by attempting to record an executive session. That termination later led the board to settle with Foster for $20,000 after he sued it for multiple violations of the Alabama Open Meetings Act.
The termination also led to turmoil at the library, with his colleagues taking a stand against his sudden firing and locking the library to the public. Numerous individuals were fired and refused to come back when offered. Some others not fired that day resigned. Assistant director Kaitlin Wilson was later fired under the board’s leadership based partly on the assumption that she leaked information to APR, despite that information being publicly available.
The policies approved by Darr, who serves on the Bylaws and Policy Committee, have landed the library in a federal lawsuit that is currently awaiting a ruling from Judge Myron Thompson. Read Freely Alabama and individual patrons have asked for a preliminary injunction to block those policies due to infringement of free speech.
Tuesday night, Nix also said she had raised concerns about fiscal mismanagement to the council regarding Darr’s position.
“The library went five months without buying new books,” Nix said. “What happened to the $25,000 meant for the buying of those books? They failed to hire a qualified library director. We are the only library system of this size in the state with a director with no MLIS degree. The people of Prattville deserve better. Darr and the board failed to fill three other critical positions. Where did the money budgeted to those salaries go? They chose to hire outside lawyers when they had access to free representation. Have you received a fiscal report for yourselves?”
The other appointee Don Bethel has not been in the limelight as Darr has. However, his wife, Kendra Bethel, has at least once spoken on the side of keeping LGBTQ books out of the youth sections of the library.
Kendra Bethel said at an August 2023 library board meeting that she reviewed four books indicated for children under 12 that promoted “transgenderism.”
“These books tell them they can do something that is scientifically impossible,” Bethel said.
The board appointments could come up again at the Dec. 17 meeting.
