Graphic Mailers Stir Up Election In Central Bucks School Board Race

DOYLESTOWN, PA — As the contentious race for school board nears in the Central Bucks School District, graphic campaign mailers sent out by a political action committee continue to arrive in mailboxes across the district.

The mailers, produced by Stop Bucks Extremism PAC, are stamped with a warning on the envelope using red lettering, "Caution. Contains Sexually Explicit Images Taken From Inside Central Bucks School Libraries."

Inside the envelope, voters find a campaign flier titled, "School Board Extremists Have Hijacked the Democratic Party! They are fighting to keep these images in our high school and middle school libraries."

The flier includes graphic images and illustrations taken from the books, "Gender Queer" and "This Book is Gay." It also includes an early voter application, prepaid return envelope, and a QR code that links to instructions on how to apply for an early vote ballot.

Earlier this year, the two books were removed from two district libraries - Central Bucks South High School and Tamanend Middle School - after they were challenged under the school district's new library policy, which restricts books with sexually explicit content. The books were never available at the elementary school level.

The message on the outside of the envelope.

School board member and Democratic candidate Karen Smith said school library books have age level protections "maintained by our professionally-trained librarians so our younger students have absolutely no access to books for older students.

"The pictures from the books inside the envelope are meant for young adults - our oldest students. Because the front of that mailer says school, elementary-aged children opened this mailer thinking it came from school," Smith continued. "The opposition has done more to expose younger students to age-inappropriate material with this mailing than hundreds of library books could ever have done."

Smith said another mailer tries to interfere with the electoral process by asking voters to write in the former school board president, who is not running for reelection. In an effort to win, they are trying to get voters to throw away their votes. This is unethical and wrong," she said.

When asked about the fliers, Republican candidate Aarati Martino said residents "should know exactly what books were removed and what they contained since there has been so much misinformation on the matter.

"Folks can see that three challenged books of the 61 total have been ruled okay to stay," Martino points out. "See http://cbsd.org/Page/6646 for the list of books. There is also a sheet for each book detailing the committee consisting of a library coordinator, district administrator, and three professional educators and how they arrived at their decision."

The Stop Bucks Extremism PAC said it is targeting 17,000-plus households in the Central Bucks School District with the mailer, which it says includes explicit images from two books "that Democrat school board candidates are fighting to have available to students.

"Adults need to see these disgusting images firsthand, which is why nearly 20,000 likely voters will see them in their mailboxes along with an early vote application and prepaid return envelope," said Stop Bucks Extremism founder Bob Salera.

"None of this has ever been about protecting children," said Smith. "This is all just a distraction and a diversion and a pathetic attempt to smear me and my running mates. Because they know the policies they rammed through and wasted $1.2 million on are very unpopular. They want everyone to talk about this one book which we had one copy of at one school, tucked away behind the library counter, instead of their remarkably terrible record over the past two years."