Louisiana parish votes to save library fund after commissioner’s rant about Mexicans
John Chrastka’s brigade of pissed-off librarians came into the game late in the Louisiana parish ballot referendum defunding libraries for jail money.
But the social media blitz appears to have paid dividends, both for library funding in Lafourche parish (Louisiana’s term for a county) and for the profile of his political action committee, EveryLibrary. Voters on Saturday rejected by about a five to four margin a ballot initiative to cut library funding to finance the construction of a new jail, a move that would have quickly sent the libraries into deficit.
“It really woke us up when we realized that the library would be defunded to build a jail,” Chrastka, the executive director of EveryLibrary, told Raw Story. The referendum came across their radar after news reports surfaced of inflammatory comments by Lafourche Parish council chairman Lindel Toups.
“They’re teaching Mexicans how to speak English,” Toups told the local Tri-Parish Times, referring to a Spanish-language segment of one library branch. “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.”
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/11/16/louisiana-parish-votes-to-save-library-fund-after-commissioners-rant-about-teaching-mexicans-how-to-speak-english-there/
