Judge Denies Latest Bid to Reinstate 3 to Library Posts

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has refused to reinstate the ousted members of the Monterey Park library board in a case that has escalated beyond just the status of the former board.

Much of the public debate over the case has centered on foreign-language books and has at times encompassed the issue of whether English should be the nation’s official language.

In his brief ruling last week, Judge Kurt J. Lewin rejected arguments that reinstating the board is necessary in part because Mayor Barry L. Hatch had undue influence over library operations.

Hatch, a vocal advocate of temporarily halting U.S. immigration, urged the city librarian last summer not to “cater too much to foreign languages.”

He was one of the leaders on the council in replacing the library board last year with a less powerful advisory commission. Hatch and other council members said they simply wanted more control over library finances.

Lewin’s ruling was the result of a motion filed last month by lawyers for three ousted board members and for the Friends of the Library of Monterey Park, a volunteer support group.

“This whole motion was (filed) just to generate publicity,” Assistant City Solicitor Stephanie Scher complained. Scher said lawyers for the former board members incorrectly linked control of the library to issues surrounding foreign-language books and whether English should be the nation’s official language.

In their legal memorandum, lawyers fighting the city cited Hatch’s public comments advocating a temporary ban on immigration and his support for the movement to make English the official U.S. language. Hatch is attending the National League of Cities convention in Boston and could not be reached for comment.

“The use of English is a very important issue,” Scher said. “But it is not an issue in this lawsuit. The real issue is how do you administer your library.”

Lewin’s ruling is the latest twist in the case that began last year.

Last month a Washington-based constitutional rights group, People for the American Way, gave its support to the ousted board members. Likewise, the Los Angeles law firm of O’Melveny & Myers last month joined in the appeal for the board, which initially was represented by the Asian Pacific American Legal Center in Los Angeles.

A Superior Court judge in May ruled in favor of the ousted board members, saying the city must reinstate them. But the City Council voted 4 to 0, with 1 abstention, to take the case to the state Court of Appeal, where it is pending.

The latest motion asked the court to order reinstatement of the library board while the appeal is being considered. Court records show that in denying the request Lewin concluded that lawyers for the ousted board had failed to show that irreparable harm was occurring from the board’s not being reinstated. Lewin could not be reached for comment.

Rights Threat Cited

In making their argument that former board members should resume their duties, lawyers wrote in a memorandum that the city had “drastically reduced the budget for reading materials printed in languages other than English.” The attorneys also argued that Hatch’s public comments, in combination with the budget cuts, posed “extraordinary threats” to constitutional rights.

Part of the motion included the transcript of a city budget hearing last July. Hatch told city librarian Elizabeth D. Minter that if library patrons want to read foreign-language books and periodicals, “they can go purchase books on their own.” He suggested that perhaps a good solution might be for private donors to build a separate library for foreign-language books.

Hatch also urged Minter to not let the library’s foreign-language collection, which includes Chinese, Vietnamese, Spanish and Japanese materials, “encroach . . . where we have too large a percentage of books in a foreign language.”

“All I’m asking is that we . . . not overexaggerate any one ethnic group in our community, no matter what their number might be,” Hatch said. “This is the United States of America. Monterey Park is part of it. Do you read me?”

Ruth Willner, former president of the Friends of the Library, said her group believes Hatch’s comments have intimidated the library staff into reducing the budget for foreign-language materials. And she said, “We are not arguing with the librarian or challenging her professionalism. She is a good librarian.”

Minter, in reacting to the recent court decision, said the foreign-language budget has been cut for this year, but not because of anything Hatch or the council has said or done. That budget, she said, “seesaws from year to year.” The librarian also noted that the expected gift of about 10,000 Chinese-language books and periodicals this month will greatly boost the library’s collection and lessen the need to purchase those materials.

“I don’t feel we have lowered the quality of what we’re offering in terms of the Asian-language collection,” she said. “We all know where” the mayor stands, she said, but that does not govern how her staff buys its books for the community, with more than half of its 62,000 residents of Asian ancestry.

As an example of the publicity generated by the latest legal motion, Scher complained about an article in the Dec. 5 issue of Time magazine. In the opening paragraph of a story on the nationwide controversy over the push to make English the country’s official language, there was a one-sentence reference to Monterey Park:

“The City Council in Monterey Park, a suburb of L.A., ousted the trustees of the library for buying foreign-language books and magazines,” the magazine reported.

Scher said the statement is absolutely untrue.

But Mary D. Nichols, of the Los Angeles office of the People for the American Way, said: “I think Time magazine had it correct.”

In the fight over the issue of tolerances for languages, cultures and diversity, Nichols said, “for better or worse, Monterey Park has become a national laughingstock or a national symbol, depending on how you look at it.”

She and Willner complained that the City Council, except for Councilwoman Judy Chu, has remained either silent or supportive of Hatch’s statements. Chu has said very little publicly on the issue and abstained from voting when the council decided to appeal the order to reinstate the board to the Court of Appeal. Her husband, Michael Eng, was one of the library board members ousted by the council, although Eng is not a plaintiff.