And apparently to stop “drag queens” and “gay penguins”.
Bradford County Commissioners slash library funding by 30% By Isabela Weiss | WVIA News | Report for America Published December 12, 2024 at 5:18 PM EST Kim Pitcher, who unsuccessfully ran for commissioner in 2023 and for state Senate against incumbent Gene Yaw last month, claimed McLinko reduced the library’s budget and fired its interim director as an act of censorship against library content. She referenced a comment McLinko made on the Average Joe Show, a podcast hosted by Joe Carreon. He said, “I am not anti-library. I’m anti-crap in libraries, I’ll tell you that much. [I] don’t want to see the drag queens and all this other stuff going on in our libraries … I’m also not going to fund nonsense that shouldn’t be done … with our children.” This is the second county meeting where residents and reporters spoke about McLinko’s comments on the podcast. Pitcher said during a recent Friends of the BCL meeting, the library’s citizen group, that she will review whether McLinko could be impeached because of his comments on the podcast. On Thursday she added, “It was just a few short weeks after this, our library director was fired and escorted out by sheriff deputies.”
There was never any drag queens at the library that I could find out, all of this was about one county commissioner named Doug McLinko going on some little niche right-wing podcast to make hay.
Related:
Friends of the Bradford County Library scramble after director fired, consider possible lawsuit By Isabela Weiss | WVIA News | Report for America Published November 22, 2024 Last Thursday’s commissioners meeting which covered the county budget instead erupted over McLinko’s comments on the podcast and included an argument about ‘gay penguins’.
And this is why I was so amused recently when John Ganz’s substack complaining about getting involved in local politics had several comments encouraging people to get involved with Friends of the Library groups for a positive and less partisan political engagement experience. Good luck with that! But I do think it’s still a good idea to get involved if you care about having any libraries left at all.
My letter to state & local reps:
I want libraries to be funded, and I don’t want to see ridiculous politicized book ban bs.
Other local political intrigue in Bradford County Pennsylvania: