A cancer that will metastasize: that's how Rochester resident SR Shapiro describes attempts to control adults' access to internet content in local libraries.

Shapiro was one of 30 people who spoke at a public comment session Thursday night at the Rundel Library downtown. The hearing was one of three being conducted this month by a task force examining the internet-access policies of the city and county public libraries. The group will wrap up its research by the end of the month and present its findings in May.

In late February, County Executive Maggie Brooks said she would cut off more than $6 million in funding to the Central Library if librarians did not prevent patrons from viewing "pornography and other graphic materials" on the computers. Under the Central Library's policy, library computers have internet filters, but patrons over 17 can ask that they be turned off. In the wake of Brooks' threat, however, the library has temporarily ordered that filters are to be left on at all times.

Brooks would have to wait until her 2008 budget to take any action on library funding. She would have to notify the city six months in advance that the county intended to exit the funding agreement, says county communications director John Durso.

If Brooks removed library funding from the 2008 budget, County Legislators could put it back in, although they would have to find the money to support it, says Minority Leader Carla Palumbo.

At the hearing at Rundel, most of the speakers criticized Brooks, saying she is playing political games with library funding. Many of the speakers urged Brooks to increase funding, not cut it. Some said her threat is divisive, that it polarizes the community and vilifies the library.

Brooks didn't attend the meeting, and that didn't go unnoticed.

"After raising this tempest in a teapot, where is the county executive?" asked Brighton resident Mel Braverman. And, he said, he doesn't need anyone telling him what material he should have access to.

Since her initial announcement, Brooks and members of her administration have remained relatively silent on the internet issue. Brooks has taken heat from library supporters and some Rochester library board members for not first approaching library officials about her concern. Instead, she wrote a letter to Monroe County Library System Director Paula Smith containing the funding threat and called a press conference.

Brooks' supporters at the Rundel meeting talked about the possibility of children viewing indecent material. Some said that people who viewed arousing material might leave the library looking for a sexual release.

Brooks backer Gary Passero of Penfield said that what constitutes obscenity is based on community standards. The community should decide what is obscene, he said, and that kind of material should be taken out of the library. Failing that, he said, computers without filters should be placed in a separate room.

And, suggested Passero, permitting people to view pornography is dangerous. Viewing of pornography, he said, progresses through four stages: addiction, escalation, desensitization, and acting out sexually.

Irondequoit resident Carley Touchstone said Brooks is a gatekeeper, much like the library boards. Her actions and opinions should be respected, he said, because she was elected by the public and acts on its behalf. And, he added, the library already screens indecent material: it doesn't make Playboy or Hustler magazines available.

Most of the speakers on Thursday charged that Brooks' action is political grandstanding. It could lead to censorship in the library, several said, and it has the potential to devastate not just the city libraries, but all county libraries.

Shari Stottler, president of the Mendon library board, said the Central Library provides important services to all county libraries, including inter-library loan administration. If the county pulls funding for the Central Library, all town libraries will suffer, she said. Mendon's library, she said, would have to close down.

"We need that service," Stottler said.

"This is an issue for the Supreme Court," said Stottler. "We shouldn't be using the library as a political pawn."

Daan Zwick of Rochester offered a moment of levity as he suggested that Brooks' action will harm the community more than it will help.

As a young man, too embarrassed to talk to his parents about sexuality and too smart to rely on what he learned from friends, he went to a library to get information, he said.

"I learned enough about human sexuality to make me the wonderful person I am now," Zwick said to a roar of laughter from the audience.

Twenty-five-year-old Floyd Minter, an Avenue A resident, said that the library has been a valuable resource in his life, and that he supports its internet-access policy. If the county pulls funding, he said, "that will be the day the knowledge died in the city."

"If you cut funding to the library," Minter said, "that's dirtier than any of the pictures in question."

Barbara de Leeuw, executive director of the Genesee Valley Civil Liberties Union, encouraged Brooks' supporters to become familiar with the Central Library and its policies. And she urged the task force and library boards to stand by the library's policy.

If the library boards decide to keep internet filters on permanently, de Leeuw said in an interview on Monday, the ACLU might file a lawsuit, though she stressed that the organization isn't making a commitment to do so.

"The ACLU is watching the situation," de Leeuw said.

At a public-comment meeting in Gates on Monday night, where the crowd was more evenly divided, many of the arguments were the same. The third public meeting will be held at 6 p.m. Thursday, April 19, at the Fairport public library.