This is an update and follow-up to my column last week about what’s happening in Livingston Parish, because last Thursday night, the proverbial mess hit the fan in the Livingston Parish council meeting.  As the title suggests, the library system is the topic again.

Throughout the week, rumor had it that the (supposedly) all-Republican parish council was going to fire the entire library board as the latest episode in the absolute insanity that is gripping Livingston Parish these days.  As it turns out, the rumors were true for the most part.

In an absolute clown show of a council meeting (most of the ones that I have had the misfortune to watch have been), District 7 councilman Ricky Goff presented his agenda item of “Livingston Parish Library Board of Control Removal / Appointments (multiple)”.  The title itself is so vague as to suggest that Mr. Goff was hoping people would not realize what he was trying to do.  If so, that effort failed miserably.  There seemed to be a never-ending line of people who gave public comment on both sides.  I will say that the liberals’ propaganda machine has been winning this battle (it is a well-funded, well-oiled machine that has been employed all over the country), but the conservative viewpoint was very well represented in the meeting also.

Unfortunately, all the public comments were an obvious waste of time.  It was immediately clear that this decision had been made well before the meeting ever started, and the five-man majority of the council who were in on the plan were just going through the legal motions of allowing public comment.

It truly was a clown show.  It is worth a watch if you want a lesson in how our government leaders are not the best and brightest.  The meeting lasted about three (brutal) hours with almost all the time being spent on the library issue.  You can find the video here, and the library discussion starts at the 24:45 mark and runs almost to the end:

Goff started off by saying that he thought the board was unable to function and the only way he knew to fix it was to fire the entire board and start over.  In the next sentence, he contradicted himself by saying he wanted to see certain members reappointed.  Clearly, he was not actually interested in resetting the board, but rather wanted to use that as an excuse to get rid of board members that he did not want but who had been appointed by other council members.

Goff also repeatedly stated that his goal was to get the sexually explicit books moved out of the children’s sections and to reduce the library’s budget.  Yet he fired the very people on the library board who were doing what he claimed to support.  Not to mention Goff’s “budget cuts” were only about reducing the rate of budget growth and not actually cutting the budget.  The library director proposed a budget increase of 7% over 2024, and the board only gave her a 2.2% increase.  Which only seems like good, responsible government to most conservatives.

One member of the audience pointed out to Mr. Goff that his library appointment had consistently voted with the board members who kept the explicit books in place for so long and questioned why he wasn’t removed.  Mr. Goff did not reply to that question.

Newly elected chairman Billy Taylor affirmed his desire to save the library while acknowledging that in the past he had stated that he would like to burn the libraries down to solve the problem.

Vice-Chairman John Mangus was lecturing audience members from the dais.  He seemed very puffed up with importance over his election to vice chair.  It should be noted that he was elected by the same five councilmen who voted to vacate the board and voted against the conservative board members when they were reappointed.  That smells kind of fishy, doesn’t it?  Almost like a back-room deal was made???

In the end, Chairman Billy Taylor (District 3), Mangus (District 6 ), Lonnie Watts (District 1), John Wascom (District 3) and Goff (District 7) all voted to vacate the library board.

Opposing this were Ryan Chavers (District 2), Erin Sandefur (District 5), Dean Coates (District 8) and Joe Erdey (District 9).  We can clearly see who is truly conservative and who is not on that council.

It was pointed out by one of the opposing council members that St. Tammany Parish is currently in the middle of a federal lawsuit for removing their entire board, but the threat of a lawsuit could not deter the five-man cabal.  They rammed their item through, despite all logic and reasoning to the contrary.

The next item was appointing new members (or in most cases, reappointing the same members).  To their credit, Sandefur, Coates, Chavers and Erdey all tried to reappoint their library board members.  Those members were clearly the target of this hit job.  Chavers’ nominee was reappointed.  According to Goff, this was because she was newly appointed and had only attended one meeting.  More likely it was because she works for Senator Valarie Hodges and they did not want to anger their senator.  Good luck with that.  Senator Hodges has been a huge proponent of legislation to help get these explicit books out of the reach of children, so the smart money is on her not being too happy about this situation.  And Chairman Taylor allowed the library leftist to repeatedly smear and trash Senator Hodges at the podium after instructing everyone to keep it professional and respectful.

Coates’ (re)appointment squeaked through on a 5-4 vote when (surprisingly) Mangus voted in favor of her reappointment.  That was rather bizarre.  Maybe his friends forgot to tell him how to vote on that one, or maybe he got confused.  Most likely it was the latter.

Sandefur and Erdey’s appointments were both rejected on the same 5-4 vote.

It was also crystal clear that the majority who had hatched this plan were totally unprepared and had not even done the research as to what was required.  When a dissenting member brought up the fact that state law requires staggered terms for library board members, and for those terms to be announced during the appointment, there was dead silence and blank looks from the five-man cabal for a few moments until they started to scramble and throw together terms on the fly, which they clearly had not done.  You would think that responsible leaders would have at least been prepared to execute their coup properly.  But not in Livingston Parish.  They never let little things like laws get in the way of politics out there.

Speaking of dysfunctional boards, the way this was rammed roughshod through the council over those other four members, it is hard to see how the parish council can heal from this.  It may be a long three years until some of these people are thrown out of their offices.  They just had a complete reset of the council a year ago, but it seems like only the faces have changed.  The government out there is the same.

Sorry, Livingston Parish, but you may want to keep your kids out of the library.  The children’s section will be filled with smut for the foreseeable future.