Smithtown library board election will feature 15 candidates, most since 2002

Tuesday’s Smithtown library board election will feature 15 candidates — the most since 2002 — along with endorsements by town Republican and Conservative committees. 

Library experts called political endorsements unusual and troubling for a traditionally nonpartisan race.

The president of an advocacy group, LGBT Network, is also, for the first time, supporting library board candidates. Town Democrats will not endorse candidates but did invite several to speak at a committee meeting. 

Three of seven board positions are in play, and voters will be asked to approve a $17.4 million budget. The new board will appoint a fourth trustee to fill a vacant seat. Board members of Long Island's largest library drew national attention in June for pulling Pride month book displays in the children’s rooms of its four branches. Facing public uproar, the board reversed its decision within days.

Joseph Gregurich and Anita Dowd-Neufeld are running for reelection.

Bill Ellis, longtime Smithtown GOP leader, said his committee and town Conservatives endorsed a slate — JoAnn Lynch, Charles Fisher and Michael Gannon — because the board is “not doing the right thing by the youngsters, allowing them to take books out that are not appropriate for their ages.” 

LGBT Network president David Kilmnick said he began working with about 100 Smithtown families shortly after removal of the Pride material. He said they support candidates Howard Knispel, Annette Galarza and Mildred Bernstein, who will let library patrons “choose what they want to read and think for themselves.” 

Heads of the Suffolk and Nassau County cooperative library systems, with more than 100 member libraries, said they were unaware of other library board political endorsements. Kevin Verbesey, director of the Suffolk Cooperative Library System, and the New York Library Association said political parties had no place in public library governance. "The idea that one group feels the need to have a partisan influence on the local library suggests they may want to limit open access or define what's right and wrong, rather than let the library be what it's intended to be, a place where people can make their own decisions," Verbesey said. 

Ellis could not name the books he considered problematic but said he had seen them, describing their subject as “sexual orientation” with illustrations. He said the endorsed candidates would not remove those books from the library but would put them in “non-children sections." 

The candidates could not be reached through phone numbers associated with them in public records or at their campaign’s email address. In a Facebook post, Fisher, who lost a Smithtown school board race last spring, said the trio was “backed by the Township of Smithtown.” The town does not endorse candidates, a town spokeswoman said. 

In a meet the candidates event organized by nonpartisan League of Women Voters, which Fisher and Gannon skipped, Lynch said she opposed censorship and politics in the library. But, she said, “there’s been a few instances where there’s been sexually explicit content in the children’s section.” She did not elaborate. 

Conservative Party leader Gary Forte endorsed candidates partly in response to children’s room material he said was graphic and inappropriate, sharing images of books including “It’s Not the Stork!” and “Making a Baby,” books written for young audiences and available in the library’s children’s rooms.

Smithtown library logged 10 requests for “reevaluation” of material this year. Several requests concerned books about gender and sexuality written for young people. Staff reviewed the requests but did not remove material, director Rob Lusak said. Children’s materials are “ordered by trained professional librarians who make purchase selections based on professional journals,” he said. Trustees “are not trained in book selection” and the library does not promote any social or political agenda, he said.

Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, said her group saw a sharp uptick in recent years in attempts to remove books on race, sexual identity and gender. In that climate, "We are concerned about candidates who don’t see their role in serving entire community’s information needs," she said.