Alpena County wants to fire library staff for sexually motivated youth books

Like most of Northern Michigan, Alpena County is politically conservative and voted for Donald Trump over Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election by 28 percentage points. Nationwide, Biden won the election by 2.8 percentage points

Two weeks before the primary, Alpena’s small, manicured lawns are covered with political posters. There are more posters about tax breaks for libraries than about candidates.

Local resident Bruce Health, who founded the NE Michigan League of Conservative Education, is leading the effort to repeal the tax.

He said he was a “big fan” of the library but felt the books were pornography and harmful to children.

“We don’t necessarily want to close the library, but there happens to be a tax coming up in August and that’s a lever,” Heath said. “It’s about getting the county’s attention that we have a serious problem here.”

At a library board meeting Monday night, Heath used his three minutes of public speaking time to read a passage from “Jack of Hearts (and other parts),” which he had borrowed from the Alpena library.

The passage describes sexual positions for a same-sex relationship between men. Amazon describes the book as being written for young adults and is about “an outspoken queer teen who tries to expose a blackmailer who is forcing him to come back to hiding his homosexuality.”

Other books criticized by residents include “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” an autobiography that includes descriptions of the author’s first sexual relationships.

“I love my library”

Critics called on the library management to move the books from the children’s and youth section to the adult shelves. The library management and the library board rejected the request.

Alpena Mayor Cindy Johnson supports the current placement of the books, but county commissioners who appoint the library board do not.

The only commissioner who voted against the panel’s dismissal, John Kozlowski, said he also believed the books were harmful to minors.

However, he told Bridge Michigan on Saturday that he did not think it was appropriate for the commission to remove members of the library board who were doing what was best for the library in good faith.

Alpena resident Helen Feldkamp called it “disgusting to drive around and see these signs accusing librarians of being groomers.”