Huntington Beach City Council to consider privatizing library

The Huntington Beach City Council will consider an ordinance at a meeting Tuesday night that would privatize the public library and establish a screening board for certain children's books. 

The ordinance calls for the establishment of a "Community Parent-Guardian Review Board for Procurement of Children's Library Materials." 

In October, the city council considered a iibrary review board. Councilmember Gracey Van der Mark said of the motion back then that the potential committee aimed to restrict access to library books containing sexual content to people over 18 years old — anyone under that mark would need a parent's approval to read them. 

"Children should not have access to these books," said Van der Mark. "If you're an adult go for it; you can read whatever you want. But, it is our job and our responsibility to protect children from material that could be harmful for them and if they're not mentally mature enough to read these books we shouldn't be exposing them and only the parents can decide that. The government should not be deciding if this is appropriate for their children."

The proposal faced some opposition, like from retired librarian Barbara Richardson, who raised concerns about the board's definition of sexual content.

"Most of your high school students are under the age of 18," said Richardson, who devoted 32 years of her life to reading and storytelling at a local library. "When I looked at the resolution and I saw 'sexual content' — that is so broad and so vague. It affects just about all the books you can think of. If you think about sexual content, what does that mean? Dating? Kissing? Almost all of the classics I can think of have sort of sexual content."