Last night about 60 people attended the Bear Creek Township regular meeting to have their say about the woke agenda being championed, ad nauseam, by the leadership of the Petoskey District Library.
The Township's tax dollars support 19% of the library budget.
Of concern, especially to Bear Creek Trustee Joe Hoffman, are books targeted to Young Adults like The Hate U Give (anti-police, crude language) and Let’s Talk about It (graphic sexual content), as well as the library’s partnering with the Petoskey PRIDE rally and the distribution of the Last Night at the Telegraph Club (a ‘sapphic’ tale for teens) for that event.
As Denny Keiser, supervisor for Bear Creek Township, stated at the beginning of the discussion, the library should not promote “political and controversial material” when using taxpayer dollars.
“If you want to promote, promote our military, fire, and EMS,” he opined.
Supervisor Keiser also made it clear that there was no decision, on the part of public officials, to defund the library. “The people of Bear Creek Township voted to have the Petoskey District Library provide library services to the Township residents through … 2024.”
Despite that clarification and despite the legitimate concerns of taxpayers about literature that cancels parental input, especially those families who are traditionalist and conservative, the left-wing supporters of the library turned out in full force to condemn the critics as “backward” and “uneducated” and “ignorant" and "narrow-minded."
Most jarring was Eric Kesseler, the husband of Nisa Kesseler (the librarian who attacked taxpayers via Facebook). Here’s the video (adult content alert) of Mr. Kesseler, who got ejected from the meeting for using profanity directed at a member of the audience.
Also grating was a masked woman who used hostile language to attack Trustee Hoffman. Here’s that video.
Conversely, the concerned residents, who never asked to ban a book or defund the library, calmly and logically explained the unsettling social indoctrination occurring via the library. Here’s Nick Rhudy, and here’s Dan Plichta, a concerned father.
All in all, it was an illuminating evening. The debate that transpired certainly reveals the divide in our community and in our nation. But sometimes the battle for good vs. evil is about drawing lines in the sand. We applaud those who took the high road when they spoke and exercised self-control especially the unified Board of Trustees.