Missouri River Regional Library board members are drafting an updated facilities use policy in response to petitioners collecting signatures under the library's front awning.
"It has been a long-standing practice of ours to ask them to collect signatures on the city sidewalk rather than the library property in the interest of keeping the library non-political and unbiased," interim library director Claudia Schoonover said in a written report to the board.
She said the library had not experienced problems or been challenged concerning the practice until recently, when petitioners chose to stand under the library's awning during a rain storm.
Schoonover wrote that one petitioner became disruptive and the police were called. The petitioner, Bradley Schade, received a letter that he was indefinitely banned from the library premises because he was approaching library patrons and asking them for personal information.
The petitioner was collecting signatures for a petition filed by Marc Ellinger to the secretary of state's office. It was one to adopt a performance-based evaluation system for teachers.
Ellinger, who is Shade's attorney, sent Schoonover a letter threatening legal action against the library if the entity continued to refuse the petitioners the right to collect signatures in public areas.
The library responded to the letter by complying with Ellinger's request and allowing petitioners to collect signatures, but stating it would review its policies.
The library's policies don't outline rules for petitioners, but an unspoken rule was one commonly enforced by staff.
Library board members were briefed by the library's lawyer at a board meeting Tuesday, and they decided to update the facilities use policy at next month's board meeting.