LEWISTON – The showdown between the city and JoAn Karkos ended Friday even though Karkos failed to return a library book she has deemed obscene.

Karkos will not be ordered to jail for violating a judge’s orders. The city will not continue trying to wrest from her a copy of “It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex and Sexual Health.”

There will be no national debate drawn to Lewiston based on the arrest of a 64-year-old grandmother.

City leaders believe they made the right choice by choosing to drop the matter. Karkos, they say, still has to pay a $100 fine and cannot return to the library until she does so.

“Going any further on this, really, I don’t see any other gain that the city is going to have,” Lewiston City Administrator Jim Bennett said.

Karkos said she would have been happy to see it go further. By dismissing the matter, she said, the city is trying to make the issue go away.

“They didn’t do me any favors,” Karkos said Friday night. “They knew what they were doing. They were protecting themselves.”

Karkos checked the book out of the library last summer and has refused to return it. She has stated publicly that she finds the book obscene and that she does not feel it is appropriate for the library to stock it.

Critics have lambasted Karkos, saying one woman should not be allowed to make judgments on behalf of other people who might feel differently.

“We felt that one person does not have the power to keep a book from the 36,000 citizens of Lewiston,” Public Library Director Richard Speers said on Wednesday.

Some critics felt Karkos should be ordered to jail after refusing to turn the book over upon instruction from a judge at a court hearing Wednesday.

Bennett, however, said that proceeding with that kind of legal action would have accomplished nothing. Putting the matter to rest, he said, is in the best interest of the city. It saves money that would need to be spent to pursue the case in court, he said, and will keep Lewiston from becoming the epicenter of the debate over decency in publications.

“We’re not caving at all,” he said. “Is it appropriate to spend any more of the limited resources that we have, in these tough economic times, to allow the city of Lewiston to be the place to play out this national and state debate? I don’t think that’s an appropriate use of those funds.”

Karkos was told of the resolution of the case early Friday afternoon. She saw it as less about searching for a good solution than the city trying to hide from the issue.

“They just said, ‘Get that lady away from us. She is an intrusion. She is an embarrassment to us,'” Karkos said. “I guess I called their bluff.”

The city issued a statement Friday afternoon spelling out its decision to drop the matter.

“This decision is not made lightly or without thoughtful consideration,” Bennett wrote. “By taking this step, it should not be seen as a backing down by the city. The library now has four copies of the same book, all donated by others, instead of the one that existed.”

If Karkos fails to pay the $100 fine, further court action would likely ensue. She said Friday night she had not decided whether she would comply.

“That’s still an issue,” she said. “It’s something I’ll have to think about.”

Library Director Speers said that facility stands by its system of determining what is appropriate for the bookshelves.

“We feel that kids and their parents need educational materials,” Speers said. “An educated person is an empowered person.”

Karkos, on the other hand, stood by her claim that the book is more about dirty pictures than education.

“I guess I was shocked to find out that the library is exempt from obscenity laws,” she said. “To me, that is thoroughly disheartening.”