In an editorial, Hoboken 3rd Ward council candidate Ed Reep states his case on why the governing body “must stop distracting us with fake social issue resolutions.”
Recently, the Hoboken City Council unanimously passed a resolution containing verbiage they obviously did not fully agree with (or read carefully) that the city and its public library and its little library cubbies around town (and its school libraries?) were now “Book Sanctuaries” such that “all types of books shall be made accessible to all without regard to their content.”
I spoke on September 6th at the City Council meeting before this resolution passed agreeing with the overall anti-censorship message but urging the City Council to amend the resolution to clarify that the words should not be read as implying age-inappropriate books are welcome in school libraries or in the little library cubbies that are readily accessible to children.
I also said that in terms of content they want accessible they should add an exclusion for clear pornography (not the same thing as literature with sex scenes) and unambiguous hate propaganda books like the Neo-Nazi adventure novel the “The Turner Diaries” that Amazon banned from its website after the January 6th riot.
The truth is that in practice the library is not actually going to allow outright porn or Neo-Nazi propaganda, and no one in Hoboken actually wants to expose truly age-inappropriate books to children at school or anywhere like that.
It is a fair observation that there might be some legitimate controversy in Hoboken around teaching or exposing children to ambiguously age-appropriate LGBT+ content like storybooks with characters in non-traditional families, and people should be able to have good-faith empathic discussions on that topic … but that’s not what any discussions of “book banning” have ever been about, at least in our city.
The infamous social media post that sparked the “controversy” on “book banning” happening in Hoboken was about a sexually-explicit book that was being raffled at an event, not actually read to children, and if I were to guess, the book was in fact removed from the raffle after its concerning presence was pointed out?
Look, we all know what is going on here. This resolution was just a way for City Hall to posture and act self-righteous, manufacturing a hubbub to get media attention and earn points in socially-progressive circles.
There was very little thought behind this actual legislation.
They claimed that the point of this resolution was to help LGBT+ and other diverse voices and communities, though now, at least as far as what has been legislated, they have also opened the gates for the library to start hosting anti-trans content like the book version of “What is a Woman?” by Matt Walsh or racist content like I spoke about earlier.
If I were elected to City Council in Hoboken, I will oppose distracting legislation and efforts like this that just seek to cause controversy where there is none on social issues so the city administration can grab headlines and pander to political partisans.
I will hopefully use my power of friendliness and persuasion to politely convince my colleagues to cut this out, but if they continue doing this stuff, I’ll be forced to call them out on this nonsense in a more public manner and make things difficult for them via fair parliamentary means.
This effort has been quite a distraction from my own work as a candidate in Hoboken’s 3rd Ward where there are much more important issues I need to further explore such as rent affordability, parking availability, and pet friendliness, but I need to show folks what is going on here.
If we want the best for Hoboken, our focus needs to be on the things matter, and people need to see how our city administration tries to distract us and deflect us from those things that matter.
You see here how they passed a resolution that most likely does nothing and addresses nothing and maybe even opens us up to problems just to get some news media eyeballs?
You see all the calories they are making us spend on nonsense like this (myself a victim) so we get distracted from what really matters?
It’s time to get someone truly laser-focused on our top quality of life needs on our City Council, who can then work to prioritize our city’s key issues and tell these folks pandering and signaling to sit down and start working!
Edward Reep
Hoboken 3rd Ward City Council Candidate 2023