Garfield County’s elected commissioners this week directed the county’s library board to ensure “pornographic materials” aren’t accessible to children at public libraries and can’t be checked out by young people.

How the commissioners would enforce that order — the latest flare-up in a fight over library materials in the Western Slope county — and how the county even defines pornography were unclear when the board voted unanimously to approve the message Monday.

Commissioner Tom Jankovsky acknowledged in an interview with The Denver Post on Wednesday that the Garfield County Public Library District’s Board of Trustees is an independent body that doesn’t have to follow the county’s directive. But, he said, “the reason that motion was made is because we do have the ability to remove all board members from the library board.”

The commissioners “don’t want to go there,” Jankovsky said, but it is an option.

James LaRue, executive director of the Garfield County Public Library District, has received calls over the last year for select adult Japanese graphic novels — some with LGBTQ themes — in the county’s libraries to be stored on a top shelf away from children. Some people have requested the library check the IDs of patrons borrowing those books to ensure they’re over 18.

LaRue called the commissioners’ directive “political intimidation.” He said there is no legal definition of pornography and that, historically, the term has been used to describe all kinds of titles, from “The Grapes of Wrath” to children’s books about where babies come from.

Read the full story at denverpost.com.