Controversial billboard divides central Arkansas community

SALINE COUNTY, Ark. (KATV) — The Saline County Quorum Court passed a resolution last month to remove inappropriate books from the county's public library children's section.

Following the decision, the library's director Patty Hector said they would not follow the court's recommendation.

After the vote, a local group of concerned citizens added a billboard off of Interstate 30.

"A couple of weeks ago a billboard was put up as you head into Benton that says, it said something to the effect of thanking the quorum court for passing the resolution that they did," said organizer Bailey Morgan of the Saline County Library Alliance.

Now there is another billboard off of the interstate that was put up by more concerned residents and groups in the area that said "Stop x-rated books at the library."

Morgan and the library alliance was in opposition to that billboard.

"When you have folks that are trying to delegitimize or harm a public institution like that it can really hurt the community," said Morgan.

Morgan is now collecting monetary donations from GoFundMe in order to purchase a billboard that says just the opposite. As of this publication, the alliance had raised over $500 more than their $3,500 goal.

"Our reasoning for wanting to put up our own billboard is to refute the claims being made on that website because in a lot of ways they are completely inaccurate or otherwise misleading," said Morgan.

Morgan was talking about the claims made on the website that is linked to the billboard.

Information that said "explicit and adult content should not be made readily available or marketed to minors."

But Frank Curtis, a concerned parent from Saline County, said he thinks moving the books that he claims are inappropriate is a good idea.

"It has been discovered that there are books in the children's section of the library that we would consider pornographic," said Curtis.

"This group, the Saline County Republican Women were basically trying to get these books moved from the children's section to the adult section," said Curtis. "That's it."

Curtis explained protecting children should be a top priority.

"I believe as parents, I think anyone involved with schools or libraries, their main goal should be to protect children," he said. "These are not good books. I could give you details but you would make me stop if I read from some of these books. Beyond the sexual content you would see they go beyond that and they are actually promoting sex between adults and children."