By KEVIN CHIRI
Slidell news bureau
SLIDELL – Mounting pressure against the St. Tammany Library Board and Director Kelly LaRocca brought the big guns to Slidell on Monday night when Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry and 22nd Judicial District Attorney Warren Montgomery appeared at two meetings to discuss strategies to restrict access to allegedly pornographic books available to children at the parish public libraries.
Landry and Montgomery said they will join forces to find a solution in the controversy that brought out over 400 people to the Republican Party Executive Committee (RPEC) public meeting held that night at the Slidell Municipal Auditorium, which followed a private get together for elected officials and ministers.
Then, on Tuesday it was Montgomery who said he feels confident that the goal of critics to put the books into a restricted area will soon be agreed upon.
“The reasonable resolution to this situation that should make both sides happy is for the books to be put into a restricted area, and I have been talking to those close to the people involved, trying to help this problem get resolved,” Montgomery said.
“I am confident we are going to get this accomplished because if it is not, the matter will end up in court and could be there for a couple of years,” he said.
“If that happens, the Library Board will be in trouble since the public will probably not support their millage coming up in 2024 that provides the majority of their funding,” he noted.
The Library Board operates on a budget of approximately $12 million a year, however, 97 percent of its money comes from a property tax millage that is scheduled to come up for renewal in 2024, with an early attempt to renew the millage possibly being scheduled for late 2023.
Montgomery believes that factor is part of the consideration for what he said is a slow change by the board and LaRocca to find the middle ground in the dispute.
“I am talking to the people close to this situation and I do believe they see the restrictions as an acceptable middle ground, even though initially they were concerned about it violating the First Amendment rights for books to be accessible to anyone,” he said. “I can tell you that they were not correct in believing it was a First Amendment problem to put the books into a restricted area.”
Montgomery said that the courts have positively supported certain restrictions on library materials, since that is not banning books from the public. Just as R-rated movies need parental approval for children to rent them, the restricted area for certain books at the library would be similar.
“If the books are put into a restricted area it positively gives parents the control they want for their kids, but the books are still accessible to the public,” he added. “And as I look at this situation, there is no doubt the reasonable position for both sides is to accept a restricted area.”
Landry, who has already gained a state reputation as Louisiana attorney general standing for conservative values, accepted the invitation to the Monday night public meeting that started with a private gathering in the Slidell City Council Chambers. That meeting included Slidell Mayor Greg Cromer, City Council members, several other public officials, members of the Slidell Minister’s Association and the press.
Landry told those in attendance that his agency had already begun looking into issues involving child pornography, which led him to start an agency called Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC), which ramped up state efforts and law enforcement to arrest child predators.
Landry said that after elected he quickly noticed statistics about rapidly increasing numbers over the past decade that led to over 6,000 cases involving sex crimes against children by his agency this year.
“In the last 12 years, our agency has had 300 times the number of calls as when we started, and each tip shows potential child pornography being involved in some way,” he said.
The state A.G. said very clearly that kids are being desensitized to sex through pornography, “which is why the numbers are going up. And a lot of it comes from the most dangerous thing you can put in a child’s hand—a phone.”
Landry said he had already spoken with Montgomery and the two decided to have their agencies work together to “determine the governance the Library Board has on the books. Then we need to draft state legislation that determines what libraries can have.”
Landry added, “when I saw the numbers going so high involving child sex crimes I prayed a lot about it, and now this case of yours may be the brush fire that I can get involved with to take it on. But make no mistake about it. I am not the Lone Ranger and I don’t have a silver bullet—the local people must be ready to fight this.”
When Montgomery appeared at the full RPEC meeting, he started by responding to a charge from the group who questioned why his office wasn’t “enforcing the law” against the alleged pornography in the books.
The D.A. explained that the job of his office is to prosecute, not investigate crimes and that to date he had no charges of pornography brought to him by any law enforcement agency in the district.
“If they brought charges to me then our office would address and prosecute where it was enforceable,” he said.