ST. TAMMANY PARISH, La. — A move to stop the St. Tammany Parish Council from replacing members of the library board is now under advisement by a federal judge. Lawyers argued their points for and against a temporary restraining order Wednesday morning.
The request for the order stems from a lawsuit against the St Tammany Parish Council which voted to get rid of five members of the St. Tammany Parish Library Board of Control.
The issue is whether Judge Brandon Long will allow three board members who filed the lawsuit to continue serving their terms while the lawsuit gets resolved.
The council’s decision to replace board members takes effect Saturday, June 1st, which is why their attorney, Bruce Hamilton, requested the order to stop it from happening. He says his clients are being targeted.
“Because of their speech, because of their viewpoints, because of the things that they’ve said and votes that they took on challenged materials, specifically LGBTQ literature,” said Hamilton.
That challenged literature has been the focus of recent controversy in St. Tammany Parish after conservative groups started contesting books and materials. The library board ultimately decided not to limit access.
Once a new parish council took over back in January, Hamilton says retaliation started.
“It was evident that the council is trying to remove the plaintiffs from the library board,” said Hamilton.
In early May, the new council voted to replace the current five library board members, all of whom were appointed by the previous council to five-year terms. Hamilton says his clients should be able to complete those terms.
“Two of them have another four years. One of them has another three years, plus, to serve before they’re finished with their service,” said Hamilton.
Defense attorneys, who didn’t want to comment after court, argued the council was trying to meet a requirement that all parish board member terms be staggered. Hamilton says that hasn’t happened in the past and the library board was singled out.
“For the library board they decided to call for nominations and held basically a mini election, which is not what they did with the other parish boards,” said Hamilton.
A decision on the temporary restraining is expected to happen sometime before Saturday.
Judge Long also discussed the possibility of pushing the matter further back since the next scheduled library board meeting to involve new members is in late July.
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