Future of Campbell County library board members up in the air after call for removal

GILLETTE — The future of two library board members is up in the air after Commissioner Rusty Bell revealed their membership in the Wyoming MassResistance private Facebook group and called for their removal from the board.

Commission Chairman Del Shelstad said Thursday he has no issue with putting that on the agenda for Tuesday’s commission meeting, but that he wanted to run it by the other commissioners before making it official.

In an email written Tuesday morning to deputy county attorney Kyle Ferris, who was recently hired by the commission to handle civil matters, Bell provided screenshots showing Facebook accounts of Sage Bear, Chelsie Collier, Shelstad and Commissioner Colleen Faber all showing them as members of the Wyoming MassResistance Facebook group.

MassResistance is a “pro-family” nonprofit organization headquartered in Massachusetts that fights against LGBTQ programs and policies.

The local chapter of MassResistance has led the movement to remove books with sexual and LGBTQ materials from the children and teen sections of the library.

Bell alleged Shelstad and Faber conspired “to place people in positions that put our employees in harm’s way.”

“To see we have elected to put two members of this group on the library board is unconscionable,” Bell wrote in the email. “They certainly did not disclose this in their interviews, in fact, one of the commissioners told all the other commissioners that ‘Sage Bear does not have an agenda.’ This is not only misleading to the commission, but dissolves trust in not only the individuals but the body as a whole.”

Bell alleged that Shelstad and Faber also withheld certain documents in public records requests, to the point that they asked for an opinion from the attorney general on whether certain records are subject to these requests. Bell said those records include emails and text messages between commissioners about the library board.

Shelstad said that if the attorney general’s office says those records should be released, then he’ll release them.

Bear and Collier were appointed to the library board in April and July of this year, respectively. Since they’ve been on the board, they’ve voted to not have any connections with the American Library Association and to change the mission statement to contain the phrase “upholding community standards.”

Shelstad, Faber, Collier and Bear denied being a part of MassResistance despite being in the Facebook group.

The screenshots show that Faber joined Aug. 24, 2021, Shelstad joined Oct. 3, 2021 and Bear and Collier joined on the same day, Sept. 20, 2021. The screenshots were dated Dec. 6.

Shelstad told the News Record that he joined the Facebook group for a short time in the fall of 2021 to monitor the conversation.

He said someone had told him that he had been added to a MassResistance group chat on Facebook Messenger. Not knowing anything about the group, he said he got out of the group chat “immediately,” and that he joined the Facebook group only to learn more about MassResistance.

He said he then left the group after finding out he didn’t align with MassResistance’s beliefs when it came to the LGBTQ community. The screenshots showed him in the group as of Dec. 6. He was not listed as a member as of Wednesday and said he left the Facebook group Tuesday after seeing Bell’s email.

“I take exception to the fact that Rusty says I’m not representing the people of Campbell County and that I’m hurting this county, that’s not a fair statement at all,” Shelstad said.

Faber said she’s not a member of MassResistance, and that she joined the Facebook group a while back to monitor what was going on. She unjoined the group sometime after the Dec. 6 screenshots.

She said she’s part of multiple Facebook groups to “keep a pulse on” what’s going on. The First Amendment allows people to peacefully assemble, Faber said, and that applies to social media.

“I guess Rusty is saying certain people he chooses aren’t afforded the same rights,” she said.

Shelstad has said multiple times that when selecting people to serve on the library board, one thing he looked at was whether applicants had put in for that board before July 2021, when the library controversy started. Bear had applied for the library board in June 2021, when there were two seats up for grabs. She received one vote from Faber.

Bear said she is “not familiar with any Facebook group” for MassResistance.

“Maybe at one point I wanted to see what the hullabaloo was about, but I’ve never seen one of their posts,” she said. “I’m hardly ever on Facebook.”

She said she knows local residents have gotten “some advice” from the organization, “but I don’t know anything about MassResistance themselves. Except for what I’ve learned at the meetings.”

Bear said while she agrees with some of the points that MassResistance makes, including keeping sexual materials out of the hands of minors, the group goes “a lot further than I would ever go.”

Bear’s husband, Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette, is a member of the Facebook group, and he’s posted several times in that group. He said he’s not a member of the organization, and that he uses the Facebook group as a way to communicate with his constituents. He makes posts on his own Facebook page, then shares them to various Facebook groups, including Wyoming MassResistance.

“It’s just a fact of life, we conservatives are limited in our methods of communicating, I will use every method I can to get the word out about what I’m doing,” he said.

He said he doesn’t know how long he’s been part of the Facebook group, but that it’s been long enough that he’s received criticism for it. Bear said he’s not surprised by this criticism.

“Cancel culture is a method that the left uses, I fully expect it because I’m not on the left,” he said

Collier said she joined the Facebook group after receiving an invite from a Facebook friend. She currently is a member of the Facebook group, and said she doesn’t plan to unjoin it. She said she follows other pages, including the American Library Association and the Friends of the Library.

“I think it’s OK to be informed. I’m not afraid to be part of something if it helps me stay in the know as a board member, it doesn’t mean I approve of anything they do,” she said.

Collier said she intends no harm to the librarians and that she cares for all of them.

“I hate the way that MassResistance treats our staff, prior library board members and others in our community,” she said. “But there’s this stigma that MassResistance has members. They don’t have a membership program.”

Shelstad said Bell’s actions remind him of a former elected official.

“This is a page right out of Mayor Louise Carter-King’s playbook,” Shelstad said. “To silence someone who doesn’t agree with you. I just think it’s a bunch of BS.”

Shelstad was referring to the summer of 2020, when Councilman Shay Lundvall was forced to resign after liking Facebook posts deemed to be racist and sexist.

“I would ask [Bell], who made him the arbiter of what associations are appropriate and what are not?” John Bear said. “We recently had a great deal of conflict about a mayor who made a similar point.”

Arthur Schaper, the organization’s field director who is based in California, said this was nothing more than an “outrageous” political stunt.

“That is a Stalinist tactic from the left to demonize people by mere association,” he said. “It’s outrageous, it’s offensive, it’s unconscionable.”

Shelstad and Faber said they stand behind the appointments of Bear and Collier. Bell did not vote for either of them.

Bell said he’s concerned that the connections to the MassResistance Facebook group were not disclosed during the interview process.

MassResistance has harassed library staff and called for the director and other staff members to either resign or be fired, Bell said.

If a commissioner was part of the group to monitor it, Bell wondered why he or she would knowingly put another member of the group on the library board, “knowing the trouble that’s caused?”

Bell said the fact that Bear and Collier were members of the Facebook group was a conflict of interest and should have been enough to keep them off the library board in the first place, and should be grounds to remove them now.

“Knowing the fervor and feelings between the library staff and MassResistance, how do they think that’s going to look, having commissioners and board members part of that group?” Bell asked.

Library Director Terri Lesley said she was surprised by the news, and that it was concerning “because of the history that I’ve had with the MassResistance group.” That history includes protests at library board meetings and signs and billboards calling for Lesley to be fired.

“I can’t say I’ve had that experience with those four people, but I have with other members of MassResistance,” she said.

She said the last 18 months have been tough for library employees.

“Certainly the attack on the library has been hard on the staff,” she said. “It has created what I consider to be a hostile work environment.”

Library board member Charlie Anderson said he was surprised when he saw the screenshots. He said he knew of several people, such as “the Sistis, the Vomhofs, the Bennetts and stuff” who were part of the group. But as far as the commissioners and library board members, “that really was kind of a surprise to me,” he said.

“I certainly can’t imagine why you’d appoint somebody from MassResistance to be on the library board,” he said. “The very fact [MassResistance] accused our long-term librarians of criminal conduct would be good enough to keep them off the library board.”

He said there are other ways to keep tabs on MassResistance without joining a private Facebook group, both online and in person.

“If you want to monitor MassResistance, you can go to their website, they make no bones about what their agenda is,” he said. “If [board members] wanted information on what they were up to…there are a lot of opportunities to talk to people they interact with on a regular basis anyway.”

Anderson said the fact that the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled MassResistance as a hate group “says an awful lot.”

Faber said the Southern Poverty Law Center is problematic in its own right, and has its own agenda and biases.

Bell wondered why this information was not disclosed during the interview process. Both Shelstad and Faber said they do not believe this would be appropriate to ask the applicants.

“That’s out of bounds, if you ask me,” Shelstad said. “It’s like me asking somebody on a board, if they’re a member of a Pride Month page on Facebook. I don’t think that’s my business.”

Faber said asking applicants about MassResistance would be singling that one group out of all the groups that are out there, and that it wouldn’t be fair.

“What if they’re in with some activity that’s harmful with kids,” Faber asked. “If they’re in a drag queen group for drag shows, can I ask them that? That would be a no-no.”

Shelstad questioned the timing of Bell’s email.

“It’s awfully strange that he waits until his last meeting as commissioner to sling mud at two commissioners, and the only two commissioners that are moving forward,” he said. “I think that’s shady.”

Collier suggested Bell took things personally after she worked on the campaign for Bell’s opponent in the race for House District 3 this summer.

“As for this all coming out in the last month, I don’t know, I think it just speaks volumes,” Collier said. “Rusty’s upset with me because I worked very hard on Abby Angelos’s campaign.”

Faber said Bell was distracting from the real issues by sending out the email and screenshots.

“It’s a lot easier to smear people than to wrestle with their ideas, and that’s what we’ve gotten to,” Faber said.

“I figured that was going to happen, someone was saying I was a disgruntled county commissioner,” Bell said. “What, am I supposed to wait until I’m not a county commissioner?”

If this information had been disclosed earlier, the commission and library board wouldn’t be in the position it is now, he added.

“Somebody’s got to ask the hard questions, and actually be transparent and not just talk about it,” he said.

“The library needs people who want to support the library and move it ahead,” Anderson said. “With these things coming out, these are legitimate questions for those members to address.”

Bell said he hopes Bear and Collier are removed, and that in January, the new-look commission can interview new candidates for the library board.

“That’s the fairest thing to do,” he said.

Shelstad said he welcomes talking about this at the next commission meeting.

“I’m glad to talk about this in an open meeting,” he said. “I think the public has a right to know what these discussions are about. We’re not trying to run and hide from anything.”