LaQuita Stec, the Crook County Library Board chair who publicly accused a fellow board member of sowing seeds of hate in the community, was removed from her position during a Crook County Court meeting Wednesday morning.
The three commissioners voted unanimously to remove Stec, considering her comments about board member Cheyenne Edgerly during a March 9 board meeting unprofessional.
“It’s not the right place for you to air somebody else’s dirty laundry that you think they have in a meeting like that,” Judge Seth Crawford said during the meeting, later adding, “I don’t see how we move forward with her.”
The 76-year-old Stec, formerly a municipal judge and recorder for the city of Jefferson, was unable to attend the meeting Wednesday, though if she had attended, she wouldn’t have been allowed to defend herself. No public comment was allowed during the County Court meeting.
Stec told The Bulletin she was still too angry to speak sensibly on Thursday morning, but in a statement that afternoon, she wrote: “I call it speaking truth to power. I believe Cheyenne used her appointment to the Library Board of Trustees for her own purposes.”
During the March 9 meeting, Stec asked Edgerly, who is also secretary and co-owner of Prineville Funeral Home, to step down from her position.
Stec spent nearly 30 minutes recounting Edgerly’s attempts to segregate LGBTQ+ books at the public library during the past two years. At one point, another board member interrupted her to ask a question about naming members of the public, and Stec said the member was out of order, then continued. Stec also said Edgerly had used her position on the board “to promote her personal agenda, stir up hate and discontent within the community and not for the benefit of the library, its patrons, nor the citizenry of the county in general.”
After Stec called on Edgerly to resign, she said that if she did not do so by the April 13 board meeting, Stec would call on the board to recommend her removal. Stec also noted that everything she had said was from her own research, as well as information provided to her by others.
Edgerly was not given a chance to respond, as the meeting was adjourned after Stec finished reading her statement.
The order to remove Stec was added to the agenda on Tuesday, the day before the county court meeting, Crawford told the Bulletin Wednesday afternoon.
Stec said she will likely follow up with the county regarding public notice requirements and amended agendas, especially since she noted the order to remove her was added after the agenda had already closed.
“It was how she delivered her 7-page declaration, or whatever you want to call it,” said Crawford, regarding why Stec was removed. He later added that if Stec had delivered different content with the same tone, the commissioners would have had the same response.
Eric Blaine, the county’s legal counsel, did not wish to comment on Stec’s removal.
Crawford was unsure whether Edgerly will be stepping down from her position as library board member.
In a phone call from Idaho on Friday afternoon, Edgerly said she was, “unable to comment or say anything.” She was babysitting while a family member was in surgery, she said.
Library board member Jerry Bishop told The Bulletin he approached Stec after her March 9 comments to tell her that her behavior was inappropriate. He said Stec responded that she didn’t care and didn’t want to engage in conversation.
“LaQuita publicly stated her private opinion from her position as chairwoman of the board. She attacked another board member,” said Bishop.
April Witteveen, previous Crook County Library director of library services and currently library director at Oregon State University-Cascades, defended Stec in a statement. She called Stec a dedicated civil servant.
“Ms. Stec is being vilified as unprofessional, when in actuality she is keeping the vision, purpose, and ethics of professional library services at the forefront of her work as a library trustee,” said Witteveen. “Her attention to the issues of bad faith presented by Cheyenne Edgerly’s actions against the Crook County Library should not be taken lightly.”
(14) comments
In the real world firing a whistleblower is an action of retaliation.
' if Stec had delivered different content with the same tone, the commissioners would have had the same response.'
LOL. The biggest snowflakes live in rube-istan, I kid you not.
Nothing says, “woke” quite like exposing innocent children to homosexual pornography , except maybe snuffing the life of babies in the womb up to nine months for any reason. The views of the enlightened are truly remarkable.
Well, that was original. Did you cut and paste it from OAN, Fox, NEWSMAX comments? I'll bet you don't have children, which probably means no partner.
I learned about Oregon’s Abortions laws from reading the Bend Bulletin and visited the Crook County Library to view their lgbtq selection which included books describing sales sex oral sex. I did not need a third party opinion to understand that late term Abortions for any reason and exposing innocent children to pornography is abhorrent. BTW, I am married to same woman for forty years and my kids are on their own raising their own families. They are happy and well adjusted and not depending on handouts from any entity for their survival.
A tale two comments IP. You come down hard with the first and show some enlightenment as it were on the second.
I've been married for almost 40 years also, with a son who's done well in school and has a good job at 32. We weren't his "friend" but we're guiding parents versus what seems to be a crop of folks who want to have parental rights but require the government to go after those miscreants who teach and are librarians. You have your opinions on abortion and LBGTQ (been around for millenia) so do I. I'll stand by my first statement though because of your first.
What's a librarian to do when a significant portion of the population gets their news from a cable channel that openly admits lying to their viewers, in order to maintain ratings, rather than telling their viewers the truth, and risk losing viewers, because their viewers would prefer to hear lies that please them than truths which may cause them to re-evaluate their beliefs?
"Stec said she will likely follow up with the county regarding public notice requirements and amended agendas, especially since she noted the order to remove her was added after the agenda had already closed."
Please do, Ms. Stec.
Along those lines I would like to see someone follow up on the Deschutes County Commission's violation of open meeting requirements when they failed to include in their agenda notice of their Mar. 8 vote to pull out of the agreement that would have given us a process by which a facility could be readied for medically fragile people from Hunnell Road.
This is how that vote appeared on their agenda:
Multi-Agency Coordination (MAC) Update
Safe Parking Support Services Update
Ms. Stec, thank you for your courage in opposing a particularly vicious and bullying example of hate. So sorry it is making an appearance in our beautiful neighboring county.
To your second point (DCC failure to include an agenda item), I argue that “Safe Parking Support Services Update” was the most accurate and legalistic description of what was actually on offer for the South 97 camp.
In public reporting, the liberal use of “managed camp” and “supported camp” implied far more resident oversight than was intended. Per the City’s Safe Parking Code, there only need be 1) a parking lot or graveled area and 2) access to sanitation, including bathroom, hand washing, and trash disposal facilities. That’s it.
We are living in scary times. I applaud Stec and anyone willing to stand up to the haters. #leavebooksalone
Scary stuff going on in Prineville.
If books indeed are being removed or segregated, then I fully support Ms Stec. This suppression of anyone “different” must stop!
Well, I suppose we'll see if Stec was right if we see the Crook County Library go the way of what's going on in Idaho, Florida, Arizona, etc
Welcome to the discussion.
Log In
Keep it Clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Don't Threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be Truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be Nice. No racism, sexism or any sort of -ism that is degrading to another person.
Be Proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
Share with Us. We'd love to hear eyewitness accounts, the history behind an article.