Louisiana Voice

Citizens for a New Louisiana, the Repugnantcan-financed organization led by Mr. Do-Good his own self Michael Lunsford and backed by the inimitable Clay Higgins, is about to attempt the undermining of yet another local library and to destroy the career of its leader.

The Washington Parish Library Board of Control will meet at 5:30 p.m. today at the Bogalusa Branch at 304 Avenue F in Bogalusa to consider the termination of Library Director Sonnet Ireland.

The board will open with a motion to enter into executive session for the “discussion of the character and professional competence of Library Director Sonnet Ireland.

Following the formal motion for the executive session, there will be a discussion, presumably by board members, followed by public comment and a vote on the motion.

While no official action may be taken in the closed session, it’s no secret that a consensus will likely be reached behind closed doors before the board members re-emerge to vote on Ireland’s fate which, unless I miss my guess, has already been decided.

You see, that’s the way these library boards, including the one right here in good ol’ Livingston Parish, work. Parish councils or police juries, consulted by Lunsford, decide to take up the banner of pseudo-decency and fire existing library board, replacing the old members with spineless sycophants who likely haven’t read a book themselves in years but consider themselves eminently qualified to judge the qualifications of those whose professional lives have been dedicated to the literary enrichment of the citizenry.

I watched the new Livingston Parish Library Board IN ACTION last July and August and frankly, I was embarrassed.

Board President Jonathan Davis was so inept and uninformed on state law that his and the board’s actions of July 15, 2025, were patently illegal and resulted in an immediate LAWSUIT  by Louisiana Attorney General Liz Mirrill.

Were the board’s actions not so pitiful and flagrantly illegal, it may have been funny. The hilarious part, however, came later, when that lawsuit settlement stipulated that members of the board, like delinquent children, would be required to TAKE LESSONS on how to conduct open meetings.

Bear in mind, if you will, these are board members hand-picked by the Livingston Parish Council members to replace former board members whom they deemed unqualified to hold their positions. Wow. Talk about irony…

This is just a sample of what Lunsford and his pals are attempting to do in every single parish in Louisiana. One-by-one, they are going into the parishes as what Cankles Ankles Trump likes to call “outside paid agitators” to shake up library board that have operated libraries in all 64 parishes without problems for years—simply because they have some perceived notion that children are being “groomed” by deviants bent on converting they to trans or gays—or some similarly silly conspiracy. Frankly, I don’t know of, indeed, never heard of, any trans or gay individual who was “converted” by some outside influence. I’ve always subscribed to the idea that if you want your kids reading certain material, go with them to the library.

And as long as you give a kid an I-Phone or a computer, he’s going to have access to all the porn his little heart desires but I suppose in Mr. Lunsford’s puritanical mind, it’s all the libraries’ fault.

But who am I kidding? This is not about decency. It never was. It’s all about censorship and control—control of libraries, television (see the capitulations of CBS and ABC) what’s left of print media (see Jeff Bezos and this week’s layoffs of one-third of the Washington Post staff)) and the Internet.

If you want to save your Washington Parish Library the way Lincoln Parish stood up for its board (they told Lunsford to hit the bricks), it would be in your best interests to attend tonight’s meeting.

You may not get another chance.