It never rains on Maine’s Schoodic Peninsula during the month of September. The nights are cool, the days are sunny and clear and there’s not enough humidity to succor even a dozen mosquitoes. And we awaken each morning with “our” view of the Atlantic. But not all that glitters is gold.

Schoodic has two libraries. One is private and is situated on shore frontage in the town of Gouldsboro’s village of Prospect Harbor; the other is public, in the town of Winter Harbor, and housed in one of the loveliest stone and wood buildings in the state of Maine. Winter Harbor’s public library receives annually $10,000 of taxpayer money toward total cost, while Gouldsboro’s library has slowly seen its town subsidy rise to where it is today: $8,000 annually toward expenses. Both towns are governed by an elected board of selectmen that serves as the town executive, while voting-eligible residents serve as the town legislator during the annual town meeting.

Both small community libraries depend heavily on volunteers to staff the respective libraries, each of which is open to the public for about 18 to 24 hours each week. Both libraries are now sharing one trained librarian to manage operations and to order books and videos. Both libraries have their own governing boards as well. Gouldsboro’s patrons include a significant number of summer visitors and homeowners who live some part of the year on the peninsula and the remainder of the year in a large urban center (e.g., Boston, Philadelphia, New York).

Programming aimed to support children learning how to read tends to attract some parents as well, many of whom have lived locally most of their lives. Although folks from away and natives get along for the most part, in politically fraught times two distinct cultures have emerged.

Members of the first culture tend to rely on either or both libraries, tend to make up a high percentage of the peninsula’s college-educated, and regard the library as a secular temple containing many of the mysteries of the universe. Members of the other culture are generally less engaged with the library and its educational mission. The first group tends to be politically progressive and votes Democratic, while the second tends to support conservatives, libertarians and populists who claim loyalty to the Republican Party.

Into this mix, an overeducated, politically engaged resident (me) who has been a tenured professor at three different colleges, published extensively about democracy and often opines in various Maine news outlets about Trump’s lawlessness has been urged by local friends to moderate a library discussion about democracy and, if possible, invite the candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives and for the Maine House of Representatives to serve as panelists who will agree to discuss American democracy.

Since our local Gouldsboro library has seemingly cut back on adult programming because of affordability issues, and since I would do this gratis as a community service in a presidential election year, I approached the library board to learn whether there was interest. What I learned, sadly, is that “board members” want to “avoid anything that might lend perception of partisanship” (as if an election is devoid of partisanship!) and thus believe that my involvement now might compromise future funding support from the town, despite my having called for town funding of the library repeatedly during my two terms on the select board.

Why the fear? As it happens, about four or five years ago, when town support of the library was being discussed at the town meeting, the chair of the board of selectmen said that he and others felt the library was becoming a haven for the local left wing. (Coming from anyone else, I would have assumed they were joking.)

The select board chair was chastised then by an audience member for trying to make public financial support of a politically neutral library into a token to be traded in exchange for hosting readings and speakers more to the liking of natives. All these years later, the library’s governing board remains “chilled” by the selectman’s implied threat.

If the library board reverses itself and opens its doors to the public to discuss democracy in America in 2024, the savvy reader will easily guess the first question I would pose to the panelists. One hint: the top priority of America’s Bill of Rights lists freedom from government interference in areas involving speech. Explain why?