Sumner County Library Board Meeting - Cancelled?
Thanks to Executive Committeemember Brooklynn White for this write-up following the cancellation of the April 9th, 2025 Sumner County Library Board meeting. This is an editorial piece and does not reflect the views or opinions of the Sumner County Democratic Party. Ready to get involved? Find Action Items at the end of this write-up.
Members of the public shared prepared comments despite cancellation of the Sumner County Library Board meeting.
On Wednesday. April 9th 2025, a group of concerned citizens and a few members from the Sumner County Democratic Party showed up early to the Sumner County Library Board meeting at the administration building only to find a typed note on the door stating that the meeting had been cancelled due to failure to achieve quorum. Some of these individuals had shown up as early as 45 minutes before the start time of the meeting hoping to be able to get on the list to be allowed to speak to the board.
The Sumner County Library board, at the direction of Chairperson Joanna Daniels, put forth a list of proposed amendments to their bylaws that were to be discussed at the April 9th meeting. Despite a lack of board members, the citizen attendees chose to take the opportunity to discuss their concerns with each other, and several even chose to still give their speeches they had prepared; they recorded these speeches in the hopes that their voices may still be heard and that these powerful speeches may still have some type of impact.
The initial proposed bylaw amendments document totals 19 pages long, however the first 2 pages focus first on a policy separate from the bylaws themselves. These two pages solely address a “Fundraising Policy”. The bottom of this suggested fundraising policy includes, “Approved by the Board of Library Trustees 21 September 2011,” and strike throughs and amendments of the “Fundraising Policy” create an impression that the Sumner County Library Board already follows a fundraising policy and that Daniels only has made some suggested changes to the language within the document. However, Rick Grim, the current president of the Portland Friends of the Library Chapter shared that to his knowledge there is, nor has there ever been, any fundraising policy or required application or form for individuals or organizations to fundraise for the library. Mr. Grim also shared that the proposed bylaw amendments were constructed last week with only four board members present.
As the time neared the usual 3:30 start of the now cancelled meeting, Chairperson Joanna Daniels appeared in the committee meeting room, as she says she still wanted to show up and share that she “appreciated” public attendance. Though she noted there are usually only about two other attendees besides the board members, she appeared to be both shocked with attendance numbers but also in anticipation of opposing voices showing up to be heard. She came armed with attitude and prepared to say a lot of words with very little information. While several individuals attempted to ask Chairman Daniels questions, she refused to give any true answers or engagement. Daniels stated that she could not talk to any of the proposed amendments as that would be “deliberation” and that she could not deliberate without the board members present, and she reminded attendees several time that due to a lack of quorum there would be no meeting so therefore no discussion.
Daniels did not take lightly to being reminded that as the chairperson it is within her duty to be allowed to speak to what the proposed amendments are without giving individual opinions of the board, and she reminded attendees that she was “appointed” and therefore did not have constituents. When asked further how the public could address concerns with her or speak with her in regards to the board, aside from attempting to attend meetings, Daniels stated that she can only speak to current policy and that she could happily discuss any of the already adopted Sumner County Library Board policies, but since the amendments are only proposed and not currently adopted policy, she could not speak to them and would not discuss them. Daniels states that the meeting will be rescheduled and that meetings must be announced on the Sumner County Commission website and that they can be found there, but she was unable to give specifics for when that rescheduled meeting may be. Chairman Daniels told the room that she needed to go to Finance to take care of some things for an Interim Director and made a show of addressing the Interim Director and apologizing to her for being held up. Before leaving she did answer a question regarding where the already adopted “Financial Policy” could be found and she denied the existence of one. She explained that the proposed policy is actually a draft that was never adopted and that “Approved by the Board of Library Trustees 2 September 2011” is a misprint. Daniels shared that she feels that there needs to be a financial policy and that it is important. What she did not say is that the proposed policy attempts to create oversight of the Friends of the Library 501c3 non-profit for which there are already organizational policies and procedures.
Mr. Grim explained to attendees that there was a two page form that would be required to be submitted to the Sumner County Library Board for approval before any fundraising could take place. The form would be required of any and all parties wanting to fundraiser for the libraries ranging from a group of girl scouts wanting to collect money to donate to the library to 501c3 non-profits including the Friends of the Library. This form can be found in the first section of the 19 page document. Mr. Grim specifically noted a clause on the proposed form states “Idemnity Insurance attached with application if not Friends of the Library Foundation.” There is a general concern that requiring insurance in order to fundraise for the library is being used as a hurdle to disuade others from contributing to fundraising efforts, especially since this policy would allow the Library Board to exercise oversight over the Friends nonprofit itself. Some additional information required in the form includes contact information for the Organization, a description of the event including the theme, an explanation of how the money will be used to support the library, and a date for when the money will be reported to the Library Board. The policy also requires that the money be given to the Library Board directly within 30 days and it includes the phrasing “no other fundraising for civic, political, welfare, youth or other groups, charities or causes, including raising money through the sales of goods or foods, is permitted in the library or anywhere on library property at this time.”
Beyond the financial policy, the full length document contains several other concerning revisions, and many of these were the focus of the speeches of the canceled meeting’s attendees. On page 5, under the “Selection Guideline” subheading, the statement “The Library strives to provide a balanced viewpoint on all subjects by selecting sources portraying various sides of an issue” is proposed to be struck from the bylaws completely, under “Development Plan, in the statement “The primary goal of collection development is to provide materials (i.e. books, audio recordings, DVDs, electronic, etc. …)” the proposed amendment strikes “that meet the educational, informational, and recreational” and replaces it with “while creating a safe environment for all ages,” and the word balanced is replaced with “with an emphasis on informational, educational, and factually correct materials” in a later bullet point. On page 6 the American Library Association is struck as a tool that can be used by library directors for selecting materials.
There are amendments across several pages and sections that all have to do with removing material from being accessible to minors that may be deemed inappropriate. The text on page 8 outlines “sex acts” in far more graphic details than any children’s book would ever include. Under the guise of protecting children from “gender confusion,” and in order to censor diverse representation, Chairperson Daniels has created graphic descriptions of sex acts that in and of itself should be kept out of reach of minors. Elsewhere in this proposed amendments document emphasizes that collections should follow state and local laws, but these descriptions of sex acts on page 8 would require ID proof of being 18+ under Tennessee’s new “Protect Tennessee Minors Act.” Due to this, these descriptions will not be written here, but they reference types of penetration and contact between various body parts, among other things.
Another particularly troubling section of the proposed bylaw amendments is one titled “Transgender and gender confusing materials.” The entire section is a new addition on page 9 of the document, or 6 of the bylaws themselves. It reads:
“There shall be no materials in the collection of the Libraries of Sumner County that make mention of pertaining, promoting, or subjecting a minor to transgender or gender confusion ideology. Materials containing transgender or gender confusion ideology shall not be in the children or young adult sections. Materials containing transgender or gender confusion ideology referring to adults shall be shelved according [ to] the criteria stated in the Policy for Protecting Children from Harmful, Sexually Explicit Material in the Library. “
Page 11 of the overall amendment document includes “Requests for material with sexually explicit materials involving minors, promotion of transgender or gender confusion in minors shall not be fulfilled”. Please consider this may even prevent adults from finding materials regarding gender confusion in minors, leaving concerned parents without access to educational materials. As Mandy Cook mentioned in her prepared speech today, removing these materials from the reach of children does not remove the necessity of parents to have these conversations with their children, it only limits their resources as parents.
An amendment requires library directors to assess resources for relevancy annually rather than biannually, adding to the already full plates of our library directors. When it comes to the “Library Materials Reconsideration Policy”, the proposed amendment requires any verbal challenges to be reported by the library directors to the Library Board immediately and removes the process for discussing verbal concerns with patrons. The amendment also strikes 4 and a half pages of procedure for addressing requests for consideration. It removes the process for appeals to the library board and the appeal hearing protocol. Additionally, with Library Directors being held responsible for minors coming into contact with certain materials and viewpoints, rather than leaving these discretions and responsibilities up to parents themselves, it is potential that materials that could be called into question may be removed from the Library entirely.
On page 13 under the Censorship and Access” heading, the proposed amendment removes “The Sumner County Library Board upholds the right of individuals to access and acquire information to ideas for information representing various viewpoints. Therefore, material available in the System presents diverse viewpoints providing the community access to desired or needed information” and replaces it with:
“It is the duty of the Library Board to ensure that the Sumner County Libraries are in compliance with local and state laws pertaining to the development of the collection of the libraries. For this reason each Board member has the duty to report to the Library Director and the full Board if any of the materials are found in violation of the Collection and Development policy. In the event of a perceived violation, a Board member will notate the titles, report them to the Director and notify the full Board. The Director will pull the materials for the Board to review. The materials will then come before the full Board for review at the next regularly scheduled meeting.”
Finally, the proposed amendment document ends with the “Request for Reconsideration Form” where it strikes the question that asks “Have you read or viewed this material,” completely removing any obligation for complainants to be familiar with the material they deem to be inappropriate.
The full proposed bylaws amendment document can be found here. Please feel free to read through the document yourself for further details and contexts to the points mentioned above.
ACTION ITEM:
Take some time to review the proposed amendments document and email the Library Board with your thoughts and make sure they know how you feel about any of the proposed amendments. They need to be reminded that while they may be appointed, they were appointed by a democratically elected county commission and that they still have a duty to represent citizens of Sumner County. Additionally, you can email Sumner County Commissioners with any thoughts you may have to ensure they have an understanding of the happenings of the Library Board and concerns of their constituents. You can find contacts to the individual county commission members here.
To the right of the page at the link above, you will also find “2025 Commission Meeting Calendar” where you can click on an individual month and find the list of all committee meetings that month including the Library Board meetings.