Four months after a library director’s high-profile departure, the town of Suffield has yet to hire a new director, half of its library commission has been replaced, and the library’s associate director announced that she too will resign.

Kent Memorial Library Associate Director Kate Jarest said Feb. 10 will be her last day in Suffield. The resignation now leaves two major positions open at the town library after former KML Director Julie Styles resigned in October, alleging political pressure and overreach into library operations by the selectmen’s office.

A shift in library commission membership has only muddled the search for a new director. At the end of November, the commission voted to recommend a candidate for First Selectman Colin Moll’s approval. Less than two weeks later, after the board of selectmen installed six new members on the KMLC, the commission voted to rescind the referral.

After conducting a review of the candidate in an executive session on Jan. 25, and discharging the Library Director Search Subcommittee on Jan. 9, the KMLC is now in the process of reviewing the resumes of all applicants.

According to a Dec. 12 meeting of the KMLC, Moll requested an in-person interview with the initial candidate, but when the candidate, who lives a great distance from Connecticut, inquired about travel reimbursements, Moll said such expenses were not in the town’s budget.

At a Jan. 17 meeting, when faced with a former commission member who accused Moll of refusing to hire the initial candidate, Moll called that assertion “not true.”

According to the meeting minutes, Moll “clarified that he had made a request for the candidate to meet in person and that was as far as the discussions went.”

For years, KML library, its commission and the board of selectmen have been embroiled in tensions that, according to some, largely center on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, namely those involving the LGBTQ+ community. Others contend that hostile attitudes and power struggles serve as the main source.

In an interview with the Courant, Moll said he disagrees with perceptions that construe past actions by the town and recent changes to the KMLC commission as attempts to appease a conservative, anti-LGBTQ+ base.

“They’ve been preaching it for two years that it’s this anti LGBTQIA+ movement and it’s really not,” Moll said. “That’s the narrative they want to create and, you know, it’s just not true.”

Discord between the town and the KML entered the spotlight in March after Moll ordered the removal of a children’s book about pronouns from a “kindness display” at the library.

Styles’ October resignation, which raised new allegations of privacy rights infringement and overreach by the selectmen’s office, reignited the library debate ahead of Suffield’s municipal elections. Unaffiliated challenger Rick Sotil, who lost his bid for first selectman, characterized Moll’s actions as a First Amendment attack and ran in support of the library.

In a voter guide published by the Suffield Observer, Republican incumbent Jerry Mahoney argued that the library’s kindness display violated residents’ First Amendment “by endorsing one viewpoint in a topic of public debate and by excluding other viewpoints, for example, that gender is fixed …”

Mahoney, and every other member of the board of selectmen, retained their seats.

After the election, one spot on the KMLC’s 12-member body was vacant. Six members — four Democrats, one unaffiliated and one Republican — were at the end of their terms. The Republican, Austin Roberts who served as chair of the commission chose not to pursue reappointment.

In a Dec. 6 decision by the board of selectmen that fell on party lines, the Republican majority voted to deny reappointments to all four Democrats, filling their spots and Roberts’ with five newly appointed Republicans. A separate vote instated Democrat James Irwin into the previously vacant position.

Critics described the overhaul as a scheme by the Board of Selectmen’s Republican majority to shape a library with more conservative and acquiescent leaders. Republican town officials said the decision was necessary to squash a “turf war” mentality.

The sweeping denial would have been unprecedented, if it had not been for the fact that the same Republican majority voted against the reappointment of two other Democratic KMLC members in 2022, citing the importance of balancing the commission, which at the time had eight Democrats, one Republican and three unaffiliated members. Originally, that was the first, and only instance, of a nonrenewal by the board of selectmen, according to longtime members of the commission.

The KMLC today stands at seven Republicans, two Democrats and three unaffiliated members. One of the latest appointees, Nina Kendrick, is an outspoken critic of Pride flags and LGBTQ+ inclusive displays at the library.

In a July 2022 letter shared with the Courant, Kendrick, who did not respond to interview requests, called for “the removal of all Progressive Pride flags, the removal of the giant pride heart, and the cessation of overly purchasing and displaying pride affirming books in our children’s department.”

Kendrick made similar requests to remove LGBTQ+ inclusive books from displays and endcaps in 2021 and 2023, arguing that the library should maintain a neutral viewpoint.

During the public comment period at a Dec. 6 board meeting, Eric Harrington, chair of Suffield’s Board of Finance and the husband of Republican Selectwoman Kathleen Harrington, suggested that the town remove criteria that require library director applicants to hold a degree from a college accredited by the American Library Association. In the meeting, Harrington described the ALA as “a special interest group, led by a Marxist.”

A master’s degree in library science from an ALA-accredited college or university is an industry-standard held by libraries across the U.S. and Canada. ALA’s president, whose term of office lasts one year, did describe herself as a “Marxist lesbian” in a 2022 tweet following her election.

Mahoney, who serves as the first selectman’s designee on the KMLC, has voiced similar concerns about the ALA and its president. In an interview with the Courant, Mahoney said that he does not believe the ALA requirement is “the most important criteria” for a library director.

Mahoney stressed that he is not a voting member of the KMLC, but he said if it was up to him, he would focus on management experience.

Mahoney said that in terms of the current personnel search, he believes the KMLC wants to move forward and secure a director. Over time, Mahoney said the KMLC may or may not choose to abandon the ALA requirement.

“Although I, along with the first selectman, Kathie Harrington, voted to put these folks on, these are all articulate, intelligent, thoughtful people who act for themselves and they’re going to do what they decide is the right thing to do,” Mahoney said.

Roberts, the former KMLC chair, fears KMLC and the town are leading the library to a future where challenged books will be removed, or controversial titles will be barred from purchase.

“The whole idea that now someone else can choose what you or your kids can read. That’s just a scary thing to me,” Roberts said “As parents, we have a job and that’s our job to manage what our children need. It’s not the government’s and that’s what’s happening here. The government, the town government is trying to step in and control what we have access to. And I think that’s a dangerous precedent to set.”

Roberts said that library staff feel like they are being “pushed out.”

“It’s breaking my heart to see what’s happening there,” Roberts said. “We’ve had multiple directors now leave because of political interference.”

In the Dec. 6 meeting, Selectwoman Kathleen Harrington said that replacing the commission members had nothing to do with politics.

According to the minutes, Harrington “stated for the record that if Austin Roberts, a Republican, were seeking reelection she would not vote for him, despite being one of the only Republicans currently serving on the commission.”

Roberts said the politics at play go beyond party squabbles.

“This is not Republican or Democrat politics,” Roberts said. “This is ultra-conservative mentality coming in. This is about the politics surrounding the LGBTQ+ community, and I would argue nothing else.”

Murriel “Sam” Coatti, a Democrat who served on the board for 30 years, agreed.

“Unfortunately, Suffield seems to have come right up to what’s going on nationally, and it seems to be something that they are so fearful of. It is the underlying issue,” Coatti said.

“This was a retaliation,” said Coatti, who described herself as an outspoken member of the board. “This was their opportunity to be able to erase the board and continue to make it a board of their people.”

Coatti said that prior to the last three years, the KMLC was apolitical. For her, the “defining moment was when Jerry Mahoney became the liaison to the board.”

Mahoney said that for the last 10 years, members of the KMLC have held a belief that the office of the first selectman has been “interfering” with the library commission and library operations. In Mahoney’s eyes, these attitudes stem from differing interpretations of the town charter, which he said, has changed over time; reducing the powers of the commission.

“The library commission had personnel powers. Now those powers are vested in the first selectman,” Mahoney said. “I think that there were folks on the library commission that disagreed with that change or don’t accept that change, and so that has been a source of friction.”

Mahoney said there is no rule barring the board of selectmen from using its discretion to appoint and reappoint.

Mahoney said that in most reappointment cases, either the board is happy with commission operations or there are no other candidates interested in serving.

“In this particular circumstance the board of selectmen did want to make a change and we had people who were willing to serve,” Mahoney said. “We needed to end this adversarial dynamic, this turf war mentality. And I mean, that’s really the essence of what took place.”

With the new composition of the KMLC, Mahoney said he is hopeful that the “adversarial dynamic” is now “in the rearview.”

Robert White, a Democrat who served on the KMLC for 28 years, said he is “concerned about the motivation of the current commission in terms of what they will see as ‘success.”’

White said that in the library’s 52-year history as a building, it has only had 10 directors.

“In the last few years, there have been three directors, one reference librarian, and now an associate director who have all stated that, if not the primary reasons, one of the major reasons they resigned was because of town government interference,” White said. “In my mind, how many more people do we go through?”

“The commission at large, if they coalesce, where are they hoping to take the library? What, what would they consider success?” White asked.

In response to rising concerns about the direction of the library, Michael Alexopoulos, the only member of the commission reappointed by the board this year, said “At the end of the day, we’re going to have a public library that serves the needs of Suffield.”

“It’s much bigger than any individual. It’s an institution that’s hundreds of years in the making to get here. And, there’s just no way that that will not survive. We’ll have a public library that serves the needs of our community and I believe that,” Alexopoulos said.

In terms of the qualities he’s looking for in a new director, Alexopoulos said he wants a “worker.”

“We don’t have an environment here in Suffield where we could have somebody who’s going to be a politician and sit behind a desk and be our library director,” Alexopoulos said.

Denise Boutin, the newly elected KMLC chair, said she feels the commission is moving in a “positive direction” as its members prepare to parse through the applicants.

Boutin, who was appointed to the KMLC this year, said she became interested in serving after she joined a “challenged book club” in the spring. Boutin said that when she was younger, she worked as a library aide and used to go to conferences on intellectual freedom.

Boutin said she believes the library director search will find a more solid path in upcoming meetings.

“We’re moving as quickly as we possibly can,” Boutin said. “I think the next executive session should prove to be very productive.”

Alexopoulos said he is not too sure what that path may look like.

“I guess progressing makes it sound like we’re moving forward. I’m not sure we’ve moved forward,” Alexopoulos said. “I think we’ve parked the vehicle for a little while here to let everything kind of catch up. I don’t think we’ve moved it backwards, but I think I’d leave that to the chair … the chair may be closer to having a feel for what the next step is.”