On the advice of the county attorney, the Citrus County (Fla.) Library System has reversed its policy banning the gathering of petition signatures. The prohibition came to light when Citizens for Home Rule Charter, an organization attempting to change the county’s government structure, held a meeting March 16 in the system’s Coastal Region Library in Crystal River and asked attendees to sign the group’s petition. Afterward, the system director told the group’s chair, Morris Harvey, that the library’s policy manual forbids petitioning and that he would not be allowed to collect signatures at subsequent meetings scheduled at two other branches, the St. Petersburg Times reported March 30.
Library system spokesman Jim Ehlers said that the system had a longstanding policy barring petitioning, posting of for-profit advertisements, and dissemination of campaign literature. “It’s seen as a distraction to library users, who expect to read books, research, and study unbothered by intrusions,” said Ehlers, who added that the system “is very much in favor of openness and availability of information to everybody” and allowed all political groups to use the library.
The ban was attacked by the American Civil Liberties Union chapter in neighboring Pinellas County. “People don’t realize the right to petition is right up there with the freedom of speech and the freedom of religion,” Bruce Howie, chair of the chapter’s legal panel, said in the March 23 Times.
Although County Attorney Robert Battista originally supported the library’s position, he reversed his position March 27 after reviewing the policy. “Once you’ve got that room and you’ve closed the door, you are free to conduct your meeting,” Battista said.
Other area libraries have faced meeting-room controversies: The city of Dunedin recently paid a $4,000 settlement to a religious group that sued when its request for a library meeting room was denied; and after turning down a reservation from the local chapter of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, the Tarpon Springs Library decided to convert its meeting room into a children’s library, the Times reported March 30.
Posted April 2, 2004.