We Don’t Have To Answer Your Questions

To: Peter Brown Cc: Heather Spearman; tina.petrow@airdrie.ca; darrell.belyk@airdrie.ca; al.jones@airdrie.ca; ron.chapman@airdrie.ca

Hello Mayor Brown,

  Welcome back from your hiatus. You had e-mailed me asking if I had received a response to the most recent correspondence with questions that I had sent to you all. I am forwarding the response I received from Heather Spearman. As you will see, none of the seven questions were answered. Seeing as Councilors Spearman and Belyk are on the library board I would think that they would be able and willing to answer them. To publicly fund our public facilities without oversight seems rather irresponsible. If The City of Airdrie is truly politically and ideologically neutral, as it sometimes claims, it would not allow publicly funded facilities to engage in any unscientific, ideologically political or social and cultural engineering programs that do not have majority public approval or consent. If these questions about the existing library are to go unanswered and library initiatives unchallenged, what other enhanced social and cultural engineering programs and initiatives might library patrons, especially children, be subjected to in the new multi million dollar facility?

 If only by way of vetting future council and mayoral candidates, along with the enactment of Bill 20, these questions should hopefully be thoughtfully and substantively answered to determine the core values of those seeking to be employed as public servants to our city. Personally, I could not be confident in the decision making abilities of anyone that believed or supported the belief that biological males could menstruate and need ready access to feminine hygiene products in public spaces. As public servants, you should all be willingly, collectively and personally able to answer sincere questions put to you about what you support.

 While I appreciate the links to The Libraries Act and Libraries Regulation pieces, I could not find any language that answers the questions.  I look forward to your substantive answers to these questions so that I might share them with other concerned residents and library patrons.

Sincerely,

Al Neitsch

Windsong, Airdrie

From The Public Servants :

From: Heather Spearman
Sent: April 15, 2024 11:12 AM
To: Al Neitsch; Tina Petrow; Candice Kolson; Al Jones; Ron Chapman; Darrell Belyk
Cc: Angela Pitt; Airdrie-Cochrane
Subject: Re: [EXTERNAL] Reality vs. Going With The Flow

Hello Mr Neitsch,

I am responding here as Councillor Belyk and I are the two currently sitting as the council representatives on the library board.

Unfortunately, while it IS a council responsibility to support a library and fund it so that it has adequate space, etc, it is not within our purview to control its content, education policies, programming, or how it stocks its bathrooms.

You can read more about municipal involvement in Libraries per the Municpal Government Act and Libraries Act here:

http://www.municipalaffairs.alberta.ca/documents/libraries/Municipal%20Councils%20and%20Library%20Boards%20-%20Roles%20and%20Responsibilities.pdf

https://www.alberta.ca/provincial-public-library-legislation-and-policies#:~:text=The%20Libraries%20Act%20provides%20the,municipal%2C%20intermunicipal%20and%20system%20levels.

I would also be happy to connect you with relevant folks at the library to discuss this matter further if you like. Do let me know if that is of interest.

HEATHER SPEARMAN

Councillor, City of Airdrie | She/Her

Facebook.com/hspearmano

Twitter: @hspearmano

Instagram: @hspearmano

heather.spearman@airdrie.ca | Airdrie.ca