Ginny Maziarka claims West Bend Community Memorial Library, its staff and board "ignored" the requests of parents in the community, referring to her attempt to have YA materials moved and/or labeled according to her personal judgments about the materials.
How is this possible, when Maziarka was granted meetings with the Young Adult Librarian and the Library Director, as is part of the reconsideration of materials/challenge process? She recently said YA Librarian Kristin Pekoll was "unwilling to discuss our concerns." Back in February (when this meeting with Kristin took place), Maziarka seemed surprised that Kristin had pulled copies of most of the books named in her complaint and was prepared to question/discuss Maziarka's objections to them. Maziarka said, We explained that our complaint was a general complaint, not an individual book complaint. She did not want to discuss the general concept of homosexual books for youth, but we forged on regardless. She went on to say, We read an excerpt from "The Perks of Being a Wallflower." This book has a heterosexual oral sex act in very graphic detail. (Note: Maziarka either self-edited as she read or read from an excerpt printed elsewhere that was incomplete, because she left out text that gave the scene context.) Later on in the book there is a homosexual male-to-male sex act as well, all in detail. We asked Mrs. Pekoll if she felt this was appropriate reading material for an 11-year-old child. Her answer, again, was that she could not make "value judgements" and that this was simply "our opinion." We heard this over and over again. (See West Bend Library Thumbs Nose at Taxpayers for more info.)
Well, kudos to Kristin Pekoll and the library staff for not making value judgments about what is appropriate for everyone else, and for being prepared with copies of the books and review information from reputable library resources about the titles in question.
Maziarka claims that she was promised the opportunity to explain her position and concerns in a public forum without time constraints, and did not get that. Hello??? What about that public meeting she held on March 26th at Silverbrook Middle School? She complains she was only allotted the same 2 minutes of speaking time at the June 2nd board meeting at McLane Elementary. Apparently the countless newspaper articles, radio and TV interviews and that March meeting didn't provide enough opportunity to "explain." But, you may recall, Maziarka neglected to complete any new complaint/reconsideration form when she was informed, at the end of March, that her complaint was unclear and considered nullified because of all the changes (first it's about homosexuality in books, then it isn't, first it's a list of 30-some odd titles, but wait, that should include the 50+ titles in the Over the Rainbow website booklist, too, then it's about sexually explicit passages in books......) Maziarka didn't complete a new form, so there technically was no complaint submitted, yet the library board went ahead and had the public meeting in June. It still wasn't enough. It never will be.
It isn't that Ginny was ignored, it's that she was denied. She had the chance to make her case and she did, and she lost. That's the thorn in her side, and she tries to conceal her defeat with accusations of misconduct or being "ignored."
One of her latest comments to me was You keep trying to hold your head above water, but your weakness is causing you to sink.
Really? I'm not the one who has gone off the deep end.
