Official wants to de-fund library, users should 'go back to Mexico'
By Carolyn Kellogg
November 14, 2013, 3:14 p.m.
Library funding in Lafourche Parish, Louisiana, may be diverted to a new jail thanks to a legislator who doesn't approve of the library's programs. Jail proponent and chair of the Lafourche Parish Council Lindel Toups supports a ballot measure that would take funding away from libraries.
“They’re teaching Mexicans how to speak English,” Toups told the local Tri-Parish Times, referencing Biblioteca Hispana, a Spanish-language section of one of the nine branch libraries. “Let that son of a bitch go back to Mexico. There’s just so many things they’re doing that I don’t agree with. ... Them junkies and hippies and food stamps [recipients] and all, they use the library to look at drugs and food stamps [on the Internet]. I see them do it.”
"We are here to serve all of the residents of Lafourche Parish," Library System Director Laura Sanders told the Los Angeles Times. "It doesn't matter what ethnicity they are -- we serve them all."
The parish -- Louisiana's equivalent of a county -- holds a ballot election Saturday over the issue; residents will vote on whether a portion of property tax dollars allocated to the libraries should instead be used for a new jail. EveryLibrary, a nonprofit organization supporting libraries nationwide, calls it "the worst library election in the country."
more
http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-library-users-should-go-back-to-mexico-says-official-who-wants-to-divert-library-funds-to-jails-20131114,0,7474904.story
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