ABBEVILLE, La. ( KLFY )– News 10 received information from a member of the Vermilion Parish NAACP who claimed Charlotte Bourg, the Vermilion Parish library director , banned them from using the meeting rooms which affects an event they have coming up in May.
“In this particular situation, an organization was not banned from using the meeting rooms,” Bourg said. “It was simply a person. They were not allowed to use it for this particular event. The library is open to everyone. We want people to come and use the library but we do have rules and policies that the board has put in place to ensure equal access.”
One of those policies states that there can be no exchange of funds . Bourg said everything has to be free and open to the public. Thus the particular event that the organization wanted to do required collecting money which is not allowed for any group. The policy states the Vermilion Parish Library, Vermilion Parish Library Foundation and Vermilion Parish Library Friends Group are the only organizations that can hold fundraising activities with the proceeds to directly benefit the library system and/or the library’s programs.