Letter | Public libraries should be safe places for children

Published 3:29 pm Thursday, April 2, 2015

When I attended the January King County Library System board meeting in Issaquah, I heard the presentation by two brave young girls and others who raised the issue of disturbing encounters with porn-viewers exercising their so-called rights in public libraries.

Child porn is blocked, but other porn is not. While abuse and violence to children is thankfully illegal, apparently women are fair game.

My concerns are these:

• Are pedophiles and sexual molesters attracted to libraries for this purpose?

• Is the bathroom the next handy place to then carry out the result of such stimulation?

• Are pedophiles and sexual molesters stimulated to their crimes by pornography?

• Does the King County Library System seem to support such crime with its loose policy of claiming its First Amendment right to free speech?

• Are children and women in potential danger when in close proximity to such individuals?

• Should our tax dollars support this kind of “freedom”?

In a library where my nephew’s fiancee works (where police are called regularly) one man took off his clothes. She was also stabbed in the hand by a man with a hypodermic needle, and now needs AIDS testing.

Parents need to know that libraries are increasingly hang-outs for the homeless, and for drug and prostitution dealing.

When standards of common expected decency diminish, safety moves out.

Would we tolerate this in our city halls, courthouses, schools, or other government-owned building?

As public safety is now being threatened in our libraries, I have written our new King County Library System director, Gary Wasdin, to ask what he intends to do about it.

This is unacceptable.

Roberta Burns

Carnation