Yancey County votes to pull out of regional library system in response to Pride display

BURNSVILLE - Yancey County commissioners voted in June to pull out of the AMY Regional Library Board consisting of Avery, Mitchell and Yancey counties, the commission's latest move in a more than yearlong battle in response to a June 2023 LGBTQ+ Pride Month display at the Burnsville library, which library leaders say leaves them in limbo as to funding and other operations.

The Yancey County Board of Commissioners voted at its Sept. 11, 2023 meeting to bring in seven new members to the nine-member Library Board, effectively packing the library oversight board with those who opposed a June LGBTQ+ Pride Month display.

But the latest move came June 28, in which the Yancey County Board of Commissioners voted to pull out of the three-county AMY Regional Library system.

Amber Briggs, AMY Regional Library Board director, spoke with The Citizen Times by phone Sept. 4, and said she was not informed of any plans by the county commissioners to address any business regarding the Yancey County Public Library prior to the meeting.

Briggs said she was surprised by the Board of Commissioners' decision, adding that the county had been in the AMY Regional Library system since 1961.

According to Briggs, the Commissioners' last mention of potentially leaving the system prior to the June 28.

"It was a surprise, and that's because we spent a year meeting with individual library boards — because we have four individual library boards — and we had met with them during policy meetings throughout the year to try to see if we could accommodate some of the Yancey board members' concerns, and change a few things related to policy," Briggs said.

Last June, the commission explored the feasibility of gaining control of the board in response to the display.

According to Whitson, in the commission's June meeting, he made a motion "to give County Manager Lynn Austin research and the process of taking all necessary steps in taking control of the current library system, and making it a county-ran library, an operation showing no bias to any religious, political or ethnic platform with oversight from the Yancey County Board of Commissioners until a proper new library board can be established."

According to Briggs, prior to the Yancey County Board of Commissioners' June 2023 response to the Pride display, the county was mostly uninvolved in the library system's operations.

Phone calls and emails to Whitson and County Manager Lyn Austin went unreturned as of Sept. 4.

Next steps

Briggs said she met with the State Library of North Carolina and Austin in July after the county informed the state it intended to pull out of the AMY Regional Library system.

The county will have to apply before an October deadline to the State Library of North Carolina's NC Cardinal system, the state consortium of library resources used by county and regional library systems.

In January, the county will also have to apply for state aid.

According to Briggs, the county has a one-year window to reverse its decision to withdraw from the AMY Regional Library system.

"But, based on my conversations with them, I believe they have every intention of withdrawing," Briggs said.

Community response

AMY Regional Library's Yancey County branch in Burnsville has hosted a number of community walks in support of the AMY Regional Library, including one last month.

"We have incredible community support for the library remaining in the system," Briggs said. "You've seen that that we've had with the walks from the library to the courthouse, and then just so many people doing research and writing letters and sending emails to the county commissioners as well," Briggs said.

"So, the community support here is strong for the library system to exist as it is. I guess the thought on everyone's mind, which I can't speak for everyone, but I've just seen it enough and heard it enough that everyone's like, 'Why are we ruining a good thing we already have?'"

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According to Briggs, the Yancey County Board of Commissioners' decision to withdraw from the AMY Regional Library Board results in a number of questions left unanswered for now.

"We're all just kind of in this phase of waiting. We don't know what Yancey's intentions are with how they'll fund the library," Briggs said. "I don't know how I am going to move forward as far as inventory, because according to the Interlocal Contract, anything owned by the regional system has to be reallocated back to the system, and anything owned by Yancey library, stays in Yancey library.

"It's very unfortunate, and what I hate most of all is just the divisiveness of it."

The Yancey County Board of Commissioners will meet at 6 p.m. Sept. 9 at the Yancey County Courthouse in Burnsville, located at 110 Town Square in Burnsville.

Johnny Casey has covered Madison County for The Citizen Times and The News-Record & Sentinel for three years. He earned a first-place award in beat news reporting in the 2023 North Carolina Press Association awards. He can be reached at 828-210-6074 or [email protected]

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Yancey exits regional board in response to LGBTQ+ Pride display