Creekbaum admitted at the meeting that he filed the appeal to force commission members to vote on the current library policy, which he opposes, according to the August 3 Orlando Sentinel. The commission established a policy in July 2005 requiring the relocation to an adults-only area of materials that commissioners deem inappropriate for patrons younger than 18. As of mid-August, no items have been moved, despite several challenges—the most recent of which was the January complaint against Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita.
Marion County Commission Chairman Jim Payton told the Sentinel that Creekbaum seeks “purely and simply to embarrass and discredit the board of commissioners because we saw fit to dissolve the library advisory board [in April 2005].” Creekbaum was among a group of anti-censorship activists awarded the Florida Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Award in 2001 for defending access to Robie Harris’s It’s Perfectly Normal at the main library in Ocala.
Posted August 18, 2006.