Louisiana Voice

Who made our libraries the scapegoats? And why?

In multiple parishes throughout the state, some would have you believe there’s a sudden plague of pornography and child molesters laying waste to the minds and safe being of young people.

Those same crusading zealots would do better to examine the innerworkings of some of our churches than to invoke their Westboro Baptist Church-like self-righteousness onto vulnerable libraries. Let’s be honest, there are plenty of child predator stories in the CATHOLIC, BAPTIST and MORMON  churches, not to mention the SCOUTS. (Sorry if I stepped on some toes, but does anyone actually know of a child being molested in a library? I thought not.)

There’s Baton Rouge Mayor-President Sid Edwards. The ink wasn’t even dry on his oath of office before he was attempting to claim dedicated library funds to underwrite raises for police and firemen.

Police and firemen need raises, no question about it. But so do teachers. So do bus drivers, road repair crewmen and social security recipients who are subsisting on a fixed income. So do a lot of other people. Runaway inflation has made that abundantly clear and it’s likely to get worse. That doesn’t change the word “dedicated,” nor does it justify going after those dedicated funds.

When voters pass a tax “dedicated” to any specific proposition, be it mosquito abatement, street repair, water and sewer line construction or ball parks for kids, that’s what they want to see the money go for. Same with library taxes.

Now the Baton Rouge scenario is being repeated in Grant Parish, only this time the local police jury, in its eagerness to skirt the law has in fact used the law to have the parish library director arrested.

Funny thing is, she’s arrested but no charges have been announced. That’s correct. We don’t know why Deidra Fuqua, who holds a master’s degree in library science and who has been on the job about a decade, has been arrested but the fact is, she has. Did I mention that she’s the second-lowest paid library director in the state? She’s a member of the Grant Parish community, yet the local police jury, in its greed and haste, turned on her as if she were a pariah.

“The arrest of the director of the library in Grant Parish is the third step in the pattern of the Grant Parish Police Jury to steal the dedicated funds of the Grant Parish Library System to which the citizens of Grant Parish voted and dedicated the funding,” said her attorney, Eugene P. Cicardo, Jr., of Alexandria.

What part of the word “dedicated” don’t these people understand?

“They are trying to take away the free delivery and reading of the senior citizens of Grant Parish; to do away with the internet and access to free books and reading for the rural citizens of Grant Parish; and to further, decimate the entire library system in Grant Parish,” which Cicardo said is a “self-funded system which provides summer reading and other programs for the youth of Grant Parish.”

What’s more, the police jury recently went into executive session and emerged to say the entire library board was fired and the police jury members will sit as library board members.

The hitch there is the library budget of something a little north of $850,000 is administered by…wait for it…the library board – and the police jury just happens to be  ..uh, broke. Sound familiar?

So, the police jury fired the board, named itself the board (kinda like Donald Trump firing the board of the Kennedy Center for the Arts and naming himself chairman, except on a somewhat smaller scale) and seized the financial records.

Then, on Monday, a search warrant was executed on Fuqua and the library. Among the records sought were the financial records – except they were unavailable because they are now with the police jury, but somebody should’ve known that.

No matter. It seems a 2023 audit of the library was, shall we say, “botched” and it no longer exists, or so we’re told. But wait. Lo and behold, the audit for the year ended Dec. 31, 2023 (which would be the 2023 audit, unless someone knows something I don’t), is available after all (see the full audit HERE) and on page 23, it says quite clearly that there were no findings to be reported on internal control and compliance material to the financial statements nor to the internal control and compliance material to federal awards. Moreover, it says, “No management letter was issued with [the] report.” Management letters are traditionally issued when there is any non-compliance.

In short, the audit was squeaky clean but apparently the police jury wants a mulligan.

So, the police jury was told there is a new audit that reflects poorly on the library. Thus, the library director was arrested and bond set at $7500. Only, the 2024 audit is not available either, because it’s in draft form.

In short, the audit was squeaky clean but apparently the police jury wants a mulligan.

So, bottom line: clean audit, but she’s arrested nonetheless. But there are no charges filed with the arrest.

Sounds like one helluva lawsuit to me.