(WMOK) Metropolis, IL – The Metropolis Public Library board appointments and censorship among other related items have been a topic of interest for several months now in Massac County.
Our most previous coverage has been the Tuesday, March 19th Library Board of Trustees Meeting and an extended Coffee Break with Mayor Canada on Thursday of last week.
However, Mayor Canada announced late Friday afternoon that three board members would be replaced immediately as he “does not have faith in the board and its current state”.
Mayor Canada stated that his decision comes from Article 1 Membership under the By-Laws of the Metropolis Public Library. This decision will have to be approved by the city councilpersons this evening.
Friday’s letter is shown below:
The “replacements” are expected to be presented to the Metropolis City Council at the 7pm tonight upstairs at City Hall. The expected appointees by Mayor Canada were named in the council outline for tonight’s meeting which are shown below.
The community is invited to attend.
Prior to tonight’s meeting, community members concerned for the future of the Metropolis Library and its content and programs – and as they said before their march in February, “Keeping the public library public” – will gather at the Massac County Courthouse and march to city hall in support of keeping the current library board of trustees members.
City Residents who would like to sign the petition – circulating online since Saturday – which is to express that the City Council vote to keep the current board of trustees may do so here
The petition reads:
We the undersigned, being residents and voters of the City of Metropolis, IL, support the present Library Board of Trustees, namely Rhonda James, Kelley Sullivan, LaDawn Bradley, Ford Loverin, Stephanie Johnson, and Paula Shelton for their actions in defending the State of Illinois Library Bill of Rights, the removal of former Library Director Rosemary Baxter, and the approval of Acting Library Director Colby Kennedy. We request that these trustees, along with the remaining board members, David Daughtery, Carl Johnson, and Cheriah Herring, be allowed to continue their work in preserving our City Library.
This follows a months-long incident that we first began covering at WMOK during a January Metropolis City Council Meeting. It was at that time that we noted that there seemed to be different opinions regarding the diversity of books at the Metropolis Public Library based on comments made at the council meeting and among the community.
A lot has happened since then – you’ll find the links to videos from board meetings and audio from our “Coffee Break” interviews on our website beginning with the link in the paragraph above.
WMOK will attend tonight’s Metropolis City Council Meeting via our Facebook Live. We expect for our coverage to begin in the vicinity of 6pm — WMOK Metropolis – Facebook
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