Louisiana Voice

By Jamie Surura, special correspondent

The St. Tammany Parish Council voted Thursday night to reappoint Pearl River attorney Charles Branton to the parish Library Board of Control (LBOC).  Branton has served as Chair of the LBOC during the past year, his first on the body.

A second candidate for the vacant position, Col. Jason M. Trew of Covington, was also nominated for the position. 

During the lengthy public comment period, two distinct factions offered observations, accolades and, often, sharp criticisms of Branton.  The group commonly referred to as the Library Accountability Project were in full force praising Branton’s leadership of the LBOC.  The Project was founded by ministers and church followers who tried to defeat the library millage renewal two years ago.  When that failed, they mounted a campaign of replacing LBOC members. 

To be clear, what they wanted was to pull books from the shelves and sequester those books containing sexual content.  Speakers such as Devin McGee, Madisonville, said Branton was able to “rein in a circus of antics.”  He called regular attendees of the LBOC local political activists.  He likened the comments made by the public at regular LBOC meetings when Branton often dismissed them, gaveling down dissent as “temper tantrums.”

Speaker after speaker supporting Branton came from the Republican Parish Executive Committee, and religious right-wing citizens such as the Slidell Ministers Alliance.  

Under Branton’s guidance hundreds of books have been placed on rolling carts behind the desks at local libraries because of perceived sexual content.  Sometimes that content involved art works.  Sometimes it was within a story and mentioned on one or two pages of the book in question.  The anti-library insisted these were part of a eft wing conspiracy to indoctrinate young children into the LGBTQIA “lifestyle.”

One right-wing Christian commenter during the Council meeting Thursday night, Fran Smith, of Slidell, claimed the LBOC is protecting the children of St. Tammany.  She said she had a “brother that read books that were obscene and had pornography in them.  My brother was a pedophile.”  She claimed to be a victim of her brother.

Long time library supporter Kevin Marino, Mandeville, said that the community looks to the Parish Council to continue to hold “the public institutions to a high standard of integrity, fairness and transparency that all St. Tammany citizens deserve.”  Marino noted that the Council had been inundated with emails and calls asking for the Council to make a needed change.

“Mr. Branton has run the library board very one sided,” he said.  “He’s unequally enforced the meeting rules.”  Marino gave examples of Branton allowing some attendees at the LBOC meetings to speak longer than the allotted time while cutting off others quickly.  “He’s offered up policy changes that have needed to be pulled…likely because they have legally questionable sounding and don’t work well.”

Former Covington Mayor Keith Villere spoke in favor of the nomination of Col. Jason Trew.  Villere spoke of Trew’s character and said that Col. Trew’s interest in serving on the LBOC was based on a “desire to make St. Tammany a better place.”

Villere elaborated on Col. Trew’s military service and his dedication to his church and family.  Trew is a retired Colonel and has a PhD.  Villere ended his comments by saying he’s known Jason Trew for a long time and knows him to be a consensus builder and someone who he fully supports for the LBOC.  “I urge you to vote of Jason Trew.  And I just want you to know, I’ve known Charles Branton for a long time, too.”

Following more than an hour of public comments, the Parish Council, as expected, voted 9-4 to place Charles Branton back on the LBOC.  This time for a term of five years.