Littler, who won the Grand Slam of Darts last week, hit checkouts of 170, 164 and 136 as he threatened to overturn an early deficit, but Humphries held his nerve to win the last three legs. “I’m really, really proud of that one to be honest,” Humphries told Sky Sports. FOR THE SECOND TIME 🏆🏆 Luke Humphries retains his 2024 Ladbrokes Players Championship Finals title, beating Luke Littler 11-7 in the final. pic.twitter.com/QUhxvSbGeu — PDC Darts (@OfficialPDC) November 24, 2024 “I didn’t feel myself this week playing-wise, I felt like I was a dart behind in a lot of the scenarios but there’s something that Luke does to you. He really drives me, makes me want to be a better player and I enjoy playing him. “He let me in really early in that first session to go 4-1 up, I never looked back and I’m proud that I didn’t take my foot off the gas. These big games are what I live for. “Luke is a special talent and he was right – I said to him I’ve got to get these (titles) early before he wins them all. “I’d love to be up here and hitting 105 averages like Luke is all the time but he’s a different calibre, he’s probably the best player in the world right now but there’s something about me that never gives up. “This is a great way to go into the worlds.” HUMPHRIES GOES BACK-TO-BACK! 🏆 Luke Humphries retains his Players Championship Finals title! Cool Hand puts on an absolute clinic to defeat Luke Littler 11-7 in an epic final! 📺 https://t.co/AmuG0PMn18 #PCF2024 | Final pic.twitter.com/nZDWPUVjWE — PDC Darts (@OfficialPDC) November 24, 2024 Littler, who lost the world championship final to Humphries last year, said: “It was tough, missed a few doubles and if you don’t take chances early on, it’s a lot to come back. “I hit the 170 and the 164 but just didn’t have enough in the end. “It’s been a good past two weeks. I just can’t wait to go home, chill out, obviously practice at home for the worlds. That’s it now, leading up to the big one.”FRONT ROYAL — In response to “questions, objections, or requests for clarifications,” Warren County Supervisor Richard Jamieson added an addendum to the 2023 Library Debrief and Research report at a Tuesday work session of the Warren County Board of Supervisors. Released last month, the report compiled by Jamieson and Supervisor Vicky Cook recommends that the board of supervisors establish a Warren County Library Board to oversee public library services. Library services are currently provided by Samuels Public Library. Established in 1799, the nonprofit is managed by a board of trustees that oversees the day to day functions of the library, manages its budget and raises funds. The library also receives taxpayer money appropriated by the board of supervisors. At Tuesday’s work session, Jamieson read the addendum, which he said he wrote to elaborate on the proposed board and address several issues that have been brought up repeatedly since the release of the report. Supervisors will hold a public hearing — required before a chapter can be added to the county ordinance allowing the formation of the new board — at their Dec. 10 meeting. The proposed board would be appointed by supervisors and have full autonomy to develop a budget, policies, and service level for the county library. The new board is necessary, according to Jamieson and Cook, to align public funding with public oversight. Supervisors have held several closed door meetings about library operations over the last few months and met Oct. 29 with members of the library’s board of trustees to discuss the events of 2023 and how the library functions. In 2023, a group filed requests to remove about 140 books from the library’s collection. An analysis of those requests revealed that many petitioners wanted the books removed for their LGBTQ content and themes. During a June 2023 public hearing on the county’s budget, more than a dozen speakers asked supervisors to defund the library until books they called pornographic were removed, with some speakers asking for a restructuring of the library. Several speakers read aloud graphic passages from books. Warren County Supervisor Jerome “Jay” Butler filed two requests to remove books from the adult section of the library last spring. “I have read the description noted in the Samuels library computer and my constituents’ email comments,” Butler wrote in his May 5, 2023, request. “This type of literature is inappropriate in a publicly-funded library. If anything, it should only be available in an adult bookstore.” Supervisors withheld 75% of the library’s allocated budget last year while the library made policy changes in response to concerns raised about its collection and created a new operating agreement between the nonprofit and the county. Both the original report and the addendum take issue with the library’s handling of the events from 2023. Prepared by Jamieson, the addendum says the “need for structural change became evident in 2023 when Samuels responded to legitimate board of supervisors oversight with a $52,000 media campaign that fostered public acrimony towards the BOS while it was exercising its governance prerogative and attempting to get an operating agreement in place.” Jamieson, who was elected in November 2023 and started serving his term on the board of supervisors in January, wrote in the addendum that supervisors established two requirements for Samuels to comply with — implementing a new book policy to deal with sexually graphic juvenile books, which trustees approved in July, and executing an updated operating agreement. The addendum addresses comments that “attempt to discredit the recommendation to establish a Warren County library board by questioning supporters’ religious affiliations rather than addressing the governance recommendations.” Jamieson’s addendum states that Samuels and the media used “inflammatory rhetoric” by using phrases such as book banning and “based solely on LGBTQ content” in attempts to reframe governance issues as social conflicts. “Only if one accepts this inflammatory rhetoric ... as factual could one assume a censorship intent. Yet that rhetoric is just that — dominating in the repetitive media narrative with these emotional flashpoint terms does not lend credence to their truth. These ongoing attempts to reframe governance issues as social conflicts demonstrate why structural reform is necessary,” Jamieson wrote in the addendum. He added that “book banning is unconstitutional and would not be part of any Warren County library board’s authority. Like the vast majority of Virginia public libraries already operating under public boards, a WCLB [Warren County Library Board] would be bound by constitutional principles and professional library practices.” He explained the structure of the proposed new board, saying that it would be a statutory public body authorized by Virginia code. The supervisor-appointed board would oversee public library services, management of public library funds and policy setting for public library operations. “Importantly, the WCLB would have no relation or role whatsoever in Samuels Library, Inc.’s corporate governance. The WCLB would have no involvement in Samuels’ organization and operation of their private company. However WCLB would have no obligation to procure professional library services solely from Samuels Library, Inc.,” the addendum says. Jamieson wrote in the addendum that while the nonprofit Samuels Public Library has historically been delegated governance over public library services, “establishing a WCLB simply realigns this governance to the public taxpayer represented authority.” Jamieson notes in the addendum that taxpayers “fund 83% of annual operations and own all the real assets, including the $6.38 (circa 2009) million library facility.” That percentage includes state and federal taxes along with Warren County taxes, as well as the construction cost of the Criser Road building, which the county owns. Warren County taxpayers contribute about 70% of the library’s annual operation costs. When contacted after the work session, Eileen Grady, the library’s director of operations, said that Samuels did not spend $52,000 on public relations as Jamieson states. Rather, the library spent $26,576 on legal fees and an additional $27,553 on a consulting firm to navigate the book challenges.
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