Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill on Monday filed a lawsuit against the Livingston Parish Library Board, alleging that it violated the Open Meetings Law when the board ousted its library director in July.
The AG’s lawsuit alleges the board, which includes Parish President Randy Delatte as ex officio and oversees the parish’s public library system, violated mandatory agenda requirements, misled the public, and suppressed participation in public comment at its July 15 meeting.
During the July 15 meeting, Delatte and the majority of library board members voted not to renew the contract for library director Michelle Parrish.
This vote followed a two-hour executive session for Parrish’s annual evaluation, which the public was initially told would not result in any action. The meeting’s agenda also did not originally have an item to renew, or not renew, Parrish’s contract.
The legal petition was filed in the 21st Judicial District Court in Livingston Parish. In it, the AG requests that the board’s vote not to renew Parrish’s contract be invalidated due to the violations surrounding the action. The lawsuit also asks the court to impose civil penalties on any board member who knowingly and willfully violated the law, according to court records.
“The Open Meetings Law is a statutory embodiment of a constitutional promise: that the public has the right to know, to observe and to participate in the actions of its government. The Livingston Parish Library Board of Control violated that promise,” Murrill’s lawsuit states.
The library board, through recently appointed acting executive director Kyla Webb, and all nine district board members and Delatte are named in the AG’s lawsuit.
The Parish President’s office’s deputy chief administrative officer Brandon Browning said Tuesday morning he was not aware of a lawsuit.
Parrish’s removal, prompted by a motion from Delatte, came as a shock to some because hours earlier, library board President Jennifer Dorhauer said the private evaluation session would not elicit any decision, which no one outright disagreed with.
“I thought there would be no actionable issue once we went into executive session,” Dorhauer said at the time. “I could block his motion currently, but (Parrish) has requested that we go ahead and vote on this.”
Dorhauer said “no comment” in response to being asked about the lawsuit.
After the July 15 meeting, several Livingston Parish residents filed a formal citizen complaint to the AG’s office alleging the Open Meetings Law violations.
Jordan Gonzales, one of the parish residents who put his name on the complaint, said he didn’t think Murrill would take this action.
“I was pretty surprised,” he said.
Gonzales was one of the many people who left the building during the executive session before the vote on Parrish’s contract renewal.
“I was upset I didn’t get to have a voice in this situation,” Gonzales said. “I wanted to trust my local officials.”
The petition filed by the AG comes after years of turmoil for the library board. The removal of the library director had been preceded by years of battle sparked by complaints about youth access to sex and gender related books.
Library public information officer David Gray said the library does not comment on pending litigation.
