CITRUS CRUSADER

By John Labriola - Parents soon could have more control over their children's reading choices under a proposal to be discussed at the next meeting of the Citrus County Library Advisory Board (LAB) in April.  The issue came up during last week's meeting of the LAB, which meets every other month. Board member Edith Ramlow, a College of Central Florida librarian, said parents should be given a choice of allowing restrictions to be placed on their children's library cards to prevent them from checking out certain books.  "I'm not advocating for changing everybody's record. I'm just saying have parents be able to choose to have that option or make that option available," Ramlow said. "Basically, it would just be something that the family can decide upon, but what's lacking here is communication between that family and library staff." The discussion came after a majority of the library board voted at their December meeting to allow more than 2...

By John Labriola - Anger over the recent removal of long-time conservative member Elaine Kleid from the Citrus County Library Advisory Board (LAB) continued to blow back on county leaders last week. At last Monday's Republican Executive Committee (REC) meeting, County Commissioner Janet Barek, who sits on the REC board as the State Committeewoman, was repeatedly challenged for her vote against Kleid, who also sits on the REC board as Secretary. One REC member after another berated Barek, drawing loud applause each time. One member accused Barek, who narrowly defeated former Commissioner Ruthie Schlabach last year by campaigning as a conservative Republican, of betraying her voters and showing her fellow REC board member disrespect by ousting her from the library board.  Kleid, who served on the nine-member LAB since 2019, was a well-respected conservative voice on the board. She opposed LGBT Pride displays in the libraries and also made the successful motion to end the l...

By John Labriola - Citrus County leaders disrespected the county's overwhelmingly conservative voters on Tuesday by kicking a staunchly conservative member off the Library Advisory Board (LAB).  Sitting in their capacity as the Library Governing Body to make annual appointments to the LAB, commissioners took the highly unusual step of removing Elaine Kleid, a vocal critic of LGBT grooming materials who was first appointed to the LAB in 2019. Joining the commission was Inverness City Councilwoman Crystal Lizanich, a liberal Democrat who demanded that Kleid be removed. The Crystal River City Council’s representative was absent. (The Library Governing Body consists of the five county commissioners plus one representative each from the two city councils.) LAB members who seek reappointment are rarely removed. Last year, former LAB members Neale Brennan and April McLaughlin were booted off at Commissioner Diana Finegan’s request for repeatedly pushing the LGBT agenda. Liberal Commi...

By John Labriola - Citrus County commissioners will be meeting in their capacity as the Library District Governing Body on Tuesday morning to make their annual appointments to the Library Advisory Board (LAB), the nine-member volunteer panel that makes policy and budget recommendations for the county's library system. The meeting will take place at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 11, at the Citrus County Courthouse, 110 N. Apopka Ave., Inverness, FL 34450. County commissioners will be joined by Inverness Councilwoman Crystal Lizanich and Crystal River Councilwoman Gabrielle Satchell, who are part of the seven-member nominating body that appoints LAB members. Three of the four LAB incumbents whose terms are expiring this month are seeking reappointment. Of those, two are conservatives. They are Elaine Kleid , an independent author/publisher and current secretary of the Citrus County Republican Executive Committee, and Justin Strickland , executive pastor at Crystal River Church of God and t...

By John Labriola - President Donald Trump returned to the White House this week and took a rapid series of bold executive actions that have sent an unmistakable message to the nation: Woke is out.  Trump, who vowed to end transgender insanity in the federal government during the campaign, kept that promise on Day One by signing an executive order which declares that there are only two sexes, and that sex is an immutable biological trait that cannot be changed. The order ends a host of transgender policies across the federal government, bans the use of federal funds for "sex changes" of prison inmates, requires that government-issued identification documents accurately reflect the holder's biological sex, instructs the removal of "all statements, policies, regulations, forms, communications, or other internal and external messages that promote or otherwise inculcate gender ideology," and requires agency forms that require an individual's sex to list only male...

 Best wishes to all our readers for a very Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year! "Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel." - Isaiah 7:14

By John Labriola - The Citrus County Commission on Tuesday decided to maintain the current public participation procedures for its meetings, rejecting Commissioner Jeff Kinnard's proposal to eliminate the first Open to the Public period at the beginning of meetings when residents can address commissioners on any topic. The decision to drop Kinnard's proposed ordinance came after the commission received some 100 or more emails denouncing the idea, which he first proposed at a meeting last month. "Today, I'm prepared to say we need to keep the Open to the Public the same," said Commissioner Diana Finegan. "At the end of the day, we want to serve the public the best way we can serve them." Finegan said she would be open to suggestions on giving residents a specific time on the agenda to speak so they don't have to wait through hours of "time certain" items before addressing the commission, as happened on Tuesday.  A number of residents who c...