Micah Beckwith was secretly appointed to the HEPL Library Board at a meeting where voting for the new appointee was not on the agenda or made aware to the public. Fifteen individuals from the community put in applications, many fully qualified with experience in the field. 

The Council only voted on ONE name, Micah's, and overnight he became the newly appointed member, who has ties to the other members of the Board that voted him in. Micah has no experience in the field of Library Studies. 

Since Beckwith’s appointment, he and 3 other trustees on the 7 member board have worked towards moving books that they deem “inappropriate” for minors out of the Teen Zone and into the adult collection. They were advised by the longtime library attorney that this is considered censorship and could even make the library vulnerable to a First Amendment lawsuit. The board was unhappy with this advice and sought out a “second legal opinion.” The second law firm drafted language for the new collection development policy at a cost to the library of $20,000. Since then, the longtime attorney has resigned, and the board has hired a third legal firm to continue writing additional language for the new policy.

The librarians have estimated that up about HALF the teen books would be noncompliant with the new collection development policy. It will take 8,000 worker hours to read, review, recatalog, and move these thousands of books. The library has to hire additional staff to complete the project. The cost will be upwards of $100,000 and very likely more.
 
This is a waste of time and library funds. It is considered censorship.

We are demanding that Micah Beckwith be removed from the Board and the other applicants be seriously considered for this position. We also demand an immediate HALT to the new collection development policy. Even children have First Amendment rights to receive information, and the public library, as a form of government, and except in very limited circumstances cannot impair those rights.