Several TRL employees snapped photos of the list posted inside TRL’s Administrative Service Center in Tumwater on Monday, June 15.
The TRL Administrative Service Center is not open to the general public, but houses offices for TRL’s administrative, IT and collections staff.
TRL Board of Trustees President and Lewis County representative Brian Mittge has confirmed that he brought the document as notes into a conversation with TRL Interim Executive Director Andrea Heisel on Friday, June 12.
The full document is printed below:
Desired outcomes:
A neutral place that taxpayers can be proud to support, that parents can be excited to visit.
When asked for comment on the document, Mittge said the list of bullet points were “distilled from conversations with many people across our five-county region whose voices deserve to be heard.”
He referenced the updates to TRL’s mission and vision statements that the TRL Board of Trustees made in 2024, saying he proposed a new vision at the time aiming to make the library a “place of respite” where people can “safely tap into the wisdom of the ages in politically neutral spaces.”
“That’s a vision to unify, creating places of common ground that earn and deserve widespread public support,” Mittge said.
The TRL Board of Trustees did not approve Mittge’s proposed update to TRL’s vision statement in 2024, but he said it was the context for the list he brought into his meeting with Heisel on Friday.
“Most people would agree that we should never sexualize children — that we should protect them and parents. That’s what I’m aiming for in these desired outcomes, which come directly from people in our communities who are asking for changes at TRL,” Mittge told the Thurston Chronicle. “These are common-sense steps we can take to de-politicize our libraries to make them safer and more welcoming for all children and families.”
A photo of the document posted in the Administrative Service Center was posted to a a Reddit forum on Monday evening. Over the course of the evening and the following day, over 350 users interacted with the post and roughly 156 people commented to criticize the document, and Mittge as its author.
Commenters wrote that the messaging in the document vilifies LGBTQ+ and homeless library users, promotes conservative talking points, and reflects a misunderstanding of why the general public has lost trust in TRL leadership.
The discourse spilled over into the public comment section of the Lewis County Board of Commissioners’ regular meeting Tuesday morning.
One public commenter on Tuesday accused Mittge of “sabotaging” TRL’s plans to seek a levy lid lift, calling his document “hateful propaganda.”
“People are already saying that they hope the levy lid lift will fail because of this paper that just simply doesn’t represent the library and doesn’t represent what the patrons want and isn’t going to save us from this financial crisis,” the public commenter said.
Patron Coalition for Local Libraries co-founder Kylie McQuarrie, who made the original Reddit post on Monday, accused Mittge of leading TRL into its current budget crisis through his actions as a board member over the last several years.
Mittge was appointed to the board in June 2023 and his term expires in December 2029.
“Mr. Mittge is framing his own political concerns as reasons people don’t want to support the library. This couldn’t be further from the truth,” McQuarrie said. “I’m here to testify that your trustee is not an ethical man. He is not a moral man. He is not a man with integrity. He is not behaving like a good or honest person. He has lied to you, to me, to all of us over and over about the library’s finances, his role in it and his underlying motivations. He is the wrong person to lead the library at this time and I respectfully request that he step down immediately.”
Centralia City Council Member Ray Chapman-Wilson was among the public commenters who spoke out against Mittge on Tuesday.
During his three minutes allotted time, Chapman-Wilson quoted a speech that Lewis County Commissioner Sean Swope, who supported Mittge’s appointment to the TRL Board of Trustees, gave in 2023 when he was pushing for a book rating system to classify LGBTQ+ material and anatomy books, among other content, as inappropriate for children.
The proposal was a topic of intense debate at the county level between July and October 2023.
That book rating system never went into effect as the Lewis County Board of Commissioners lacks the jurisdiction to impose it on TRL.
After repeating quotes from a speech Swope gave in 2023 supporting the book rating system, Chapman Wilson expressed that he was opposed to Swope’s views regarding TRL and encouraged his fellow Lewis County residents to vote in the county commissioner races up for election this year.
After Tuesday’s meeting, Swope made a statement to the Thurston Chronicle saying he found it “concerning that Centralia City Councilor Ray Chapman Wilson took to the mic to defend the library’s stance on distributing material that promotes the division of children from parents — encouraging and grooming children to hide their library cards so parents don’t know what they’re checking out, including access to pornographic illustrated books.”
Swope added that he was “appalled by the character assassination and scapegoating” directed toward Mittge.
Swope went on to call Mittge “an upstanding member of our community who has given so much of his time and is incredibly generous in serving the public. Painting this dedicated man as evil is disgraceful. What he is asking for is simple common sense — exactly what the people of Lewis County expect.”
Swope additionally voiced his support for Mittge’s list “desired outcomes,” saying he will “oppose any levy lid lift and work to protect Lewis County taxpayers” if TRL opposes Mittge’s vision for the library system and “refuses to return to its core mission.”
“Libraries should be places to check out books and study in a safe, neutral environment for all— not venues for activism, sexualizing children, or dividing kids from parents. Brian is right: get back to being a library. Beige, not rainbow. Non-partisan, with books in their appropriate places for all ages. No book banning, but no inappropriate content in the children’s sections,” Swope stated.
On TRL’s part, the regional library district’s website was still decked out in rainbows on Tuesday in celebration of Pride month.
In an official statement to the Thurston Chronicle Tuesday afternoon, Heisel said that TRL “upholds the values of equitable access and intellectual freedom for all and will continue to protect your right to read.”
As reflected in its current vision statement, Heisel said, TRL upholds the values of intellectual freedom, the board-adopted American Library Association Bill of Rights and the First Amendment. TRL additionally supports diverse communities, perspectives and ideas, as reflected in its mission, vision and values statements.
“Our libraries exist to provide materials, information, and programming for all members of our community and present points of view that reflect a variety of ideas, information, stories, and experiences. Library resources help readers learn about the cultures, perspectives, and experiences of a variety of people — as well as their own,” she stated. “Every individual has the right to make their own decisions about what they read and believe, regardless of the content or viewpoint. We’re not always going to agree with everyone’s reading choices — politically, socially, or morally. Library materials are for personal selection; they are not required reading.”
TRL has collection policies to ensure that librarians consider age, social and emotional development, reading level, and interest when adding books to kids sections, and has reconsideration procedures in place to ensure formal complaints are handled in a responsive and consistent manner.
“Public library staff do not operate in the place of parents. We rely on parents and guardians to guide their children’s use of the library, whether that means reviewing themselves what their children want to check out, consulting with librarians on finding appropriate books, or deciding to participate or not in programs we offer. Parents have the right to guide their children’s reading but not to make decisions for other parents’ children,” Heisel said.
Note: Brian Mittge is a longtime contributor to The Chronicle. He has been a columnist for over a decade and previously served as a reporter and editor.
