October 20, 2022

A plan to convert a library building in the farming town of McFarland in the Central Valley into a police station sparked widespread protest.

Kern County recently expanded the library’s hours to open five days a week. Yet the city leaders of McFarland are doubling down, saying the police need the library building to meet the town’s public safety needs.

At the heart of this debate: What is the role of a library? Who does it serve?

Guests:

  • Andie Sullivan, Director, Kern County Library
  • Emma Gallegos, Reporter, EdSource

Read more from EdSource:

Education Beat is a weekly podcast hosted by EdSource’s Zaidee Stavely and produced by Coby McDonald.

Transcript:

ANNE:

Welcome to Education Beat, I’m Anne Vasquez, CEO of EdSource. Back in April, we brought you the story of a plan to convert a library in the farming town of McFarland in the Central Valley into a police station. In response to widespread protest, Kern County recently declined the plan and instead expanded the library’s hours, so it is now open 5 days a week.

And yet, the city council of McFarland is doubling down, saying the police need the library building to meet the town’s public safety needs.

At the heart of this debate: What is the role of a library? Who does it serve?

Here’s this week’s Education Beat, with host Zaidee Stavely.

ZAIDEE: 

Andie Sullivan’s connection to Kern County goes way back.

ANDIE: 

My family’s been here for a hundred years. Um, but I was born, um, in the Bay Area for the first eight years of my life. I lived up there, but we were here all the time, so I felt like it was home anyway,

ZAIDEE: 

Growing up she never thought she’d be a librarian.

Andie: 

I was going to Cal State and I needed a job and someone said, Oh, they’re hiring at the library. I kind of laughed, That’s not for me. I’m kind of loud, not quiet. This is not, this is not gonna work out well, but I’ll apply and just see where it goes. . And so I applied and they, they hired me as a shelve. And being a shelve forced me to be quiet because I had to, uh, you know, shelve, I wasn’t able to really answer questions or anything. So it made me observe. And I really watched that exchange of knowledge between a library staff person and the public. I watched that power of wow, you could really help and impact people’s lives and directions and give them, um, places to go or look or seek. And I just, I, I was just amazed by that.

ZAIDEE: 

The farm town of McFarland, in the San Joaquin Valley, has had a library for over a hundred years.

ANDIE:

I believe, early 19 hundreds. And as most libraries did, um, especially in our county, they started out either in people’s homes or in pharmacies or small stores or, um, whatever it was, it was important for them to have a library. 

ZAIDEE: 

The current library in McFarland was built in the 1990s. And it was built with construction funds dedicated strictly for the construction of public libraries. It was exciting and it was a big deal and the school district donated the land. 

Sullivan is now the director of libraries for all of Kern County. She knows how much the Mcfarland library has meant to the community.

ANDIE:

And, um, I would love to keep it in its current location. It’s built for that purpose and it’s constructed for that purpose.

ZAIDEE: 

So when Andie heard that the city leaders of McFarland wanted to convert the library building into a police station, she was sad.

ANDIE:

I’m always sad if a public library isn’t being used for what is intended to be used for. 

ZAIDEE: 

So many people in McFarland wrote the county to say they wanted to keep the library in the same place. 3,000 people signed a petition. The county responded by opening it up five days a week. Before, it was only open 2 days a week. In fact, McFarland was the first library where the county decided to expand service.

ANDIE:

We are looking to expand our days and hours at branches all over the county coming out of covid. Um, and we were still in this year, earlier this year, we were still reopening libraries that were closed because of covid. So we’re still trying to get our feet, you know, under us, get our legs under us, and become more stable. Right. And so we figured what that McFarland would be a great place to start that expansion and open more days. 

ZAIDEE: 

But the city leaders of McFarland are still asking the county to move the library so they can use the buliding as a new police station. Here’s police chief and city manager Kenny Williams at a county board of supervisors meeting last month.

WILLIAMS:

We have far outgrown our police building. And we are in dire need of a larger structure to allow us to address the needs of public safety in our community. 

ZAIDEE: 

This is Education Beat: Getting to the heart of California schools. I’m Zaidee Stavely. This week: what and who is a library for? You might wonder why we’re even talking about a library on a podcast about education. But libraries have a long history of being places of education. In fact, they’re often called the people’s university.

Since the McFarland branch of the Kern County Library opened up five days a week starting September 12, it’s seeing a lot more people, says Andie Sullivan.

ANDIE:

It’s showing the foot traffic, the community they’re coming. It’s about 200, 250 people a day. 

Fridays, um, there’s like 400 every Friday. It’s between three and 400 people. And I was asking why, why Fridays? And they said Fridays, they get out in school early, and so they all come and hang out and do activities and do programming.

ZAIDEE: 

On her most recent visit to the McFarland Library, this week, my colleague Emma Gallegos saw kids doing arts and crafts, doing homework, and yes… checking out books.

Emma has been following the saga inMcFarland over what this building should be used for. She visited the library and reported on the protests from kids and adults in the community, calling for it to open more hours instead of closing and converting to a police station. She then wrote about how the county listened to those calls and opened it up five days a week.

EMMA:

So there was, there was a lot of, you know, kind of rejoicing and happiness around this and, um, excitement in the community. Um, but then the city of McFarland, so this is, as this plan is being rolled out, um, the leaders again, come to the county board of supervisors and ask again, we would like to convert this police station into a, or this library into, um, the police headquarters. 

ZAIDEE: 

So that last meeting that you wrote about where the city council basically announced that they are doubling down and they want, they still want to convert the library into a police station, despite how many people are using it, it seems really contentious. Can you kind of describe, um, the meeting for our listeners? 

EMMA:

Yeah. So this, it, there was a, a very lengthy discussion. So, um, the city leaders of McFarland came to the board of Supervisors and they gave a presentation about why they thought that, again, that this, um, this library should be converted. 

ZAIDEE: 

It should be noted that the same guy, Kenny Williams, is both the city manager and the chief of police.

EMMA:

Yes. So he says that the current space for the police headquarters, which is part of City Hall, is too cramped. He said, this is not a place that a modern police department can function. They can’t do all of the jobs that need to be done. Um, and he said that in his view, there is no reason that a library should take precedents over police safety. So basically saying that public safety comes, you know, it’s more important than anything else going on in the city, including the library. So they should take precedent. 

And it ended up being really just a discussion about, um, just about the library in Kern County. Um, so, and just a lot of the issues that, you know, I’ve written about before. Um, so, uh, the, actually the Kern County Taxpayers Association, which is very, very rare for them to do something like this, but they are really, um, in favor of workforce development. And they see the library as key to that. Um, and so, you know, they came out and they said, This is a bad idea. They just said, flat out, this is a bad idea. We need to be developing our workforce, particularly in a lot of these communities. 

And then what happened was the supervisor for this area that represents McFarland also started, I would say, grilling the head of the library , about what the role of the library is. 

DAVID COUCH:

ZAIDEE: 

This is Kern County Supervisor David Couch. And the person Emma descries him as grilling is Andie Sullivan, who we heard from earlier.

EMMA:

He also asked for the police chief and city manager of McFarland to give his testimony about what he saw in a library. And he asked him, he said, You described it as a, as a daycare center. And, um, and so then police chief city manager, Kenny Williams, came forward and said, Yeah, um, this, you know, what was happening, uh, is, and he, he attributed it to one of the employees there who said, This functions as a daycare. And so then there was a whole discussion about whether libraries function as daycare centers, which felt like a very loaded term. 

ANDIE:

That was a little shocking to hear that people would call a library daycare. Uh, I hadn’t heard that before, so that was news to me. 

EMMA:

And supervisor David Couch said, 

COUCH:

The core services of the library I don’t really know what they are. Because in my view they are too numerous.

ZAIDEE: 

When Andie Sullivan heard that…

ANDIE:

Uh, I, I do not think that the, our libraries are offering too many services. I think that we are doing a lot of good work with very little funding and that to me is something to be celebrated and, um, championed and how can that be replicated elsewhere, especially in libraries that have, well fund, you know, great funding streams coming to them. We don’t, So we’re very scrappy and we’re, uh, feisty and we figure out ways to do things for free and we really don’t take no for an answer. And I, I, I think that makes us, um, really well ingrained in the communities that we serve cuz we are utilizing those around us to help carry out our functions. And part of our function is being that community hub. Um, if they wanna call it daycare, that that’s their right, they can call it daycare, but I say bring all those youngins in, get ’em in. It’s, I love having noise and kids and activities and seeing the parents come in afterwards is when, when it’s a safe space and kids are kids, to me that’s success. That’s when we’re doing something well.

ZAIDEE: 

The meeting was tense. At one point Supervisor Couch actually brought up Andie Sullivan’s annual performance evaluation, and he said the supervisors would discuss whether libraries were doing too much then.

Chief Wiliams also compared the library today to how he remembers it being when he was a kid.

WILLIAMS:

In those days a library was extremely quiet. It was a place to study. A place to go in and read and those type of things. … I wanted to visit and see what the library in Macfarfland was like. … There was probably 50, 30 to 50 kids from the school. It was extremely noisy in there. Certainly you couldn’t study inthere in any grasp, without being disturbed. unless you had a headset on or something. So it was different for me. And I understand that’s how libraries are now. They cater, and the kids come and its kind of a place to hang out. 

ZAIDEE:

And Andie Sullivan responded.

EMMA:

She said at the time that she believes that noise in a library is okay, that’s a sign of collaborative learning. This is 21st century learning. Um, kids can talk in the library, they can, um, work on group projects together, collaborate with each other. They can have fun , you know.

ANDIE:

I would hope that we would’ve changed since the 1950s or sixties. I wouldn’t want my police to be the same as their 1950s policing or 1960s policing. So I’m okay with changing and evolving. Um, I think that’s what we’re tasked to do. And I feel that as a community hub, we’re always testing the waters around us to see what is it that our communities need.

I love the McFarland branch. I like the community, uh, room that we have. Not all of our libraries have community rooms and they have a really nice one, and that’s where we do our snacks and the stacks after, um, school. And that’s one of the higher well-attended events that we’re offering. So that’s Monday through Friday and probably 30 families eat every afternoon. The kids do. And we connect it with learning opportunities and programming. So it’s just a nice way to bring local families in and to have ’em feel comfortable in the library and become accustomed and be okay to ask for questions and ask for homework help or ask for direction. And, you know, it, it’s the safe space. 

I know that they’re trying to do something every single day. Um, and I know that they have on certain days things for adults, like, um, Dungeons and Dragons Club, uh, they have movie nights, I think on Friday. They have, um, snacks in the stack every single day. They’re doing story times, um, and crafts, anything to do with crafting or exploring your creativity. 

We have a whole section on our website that’s a job seekers toolkit. So anybody in the county, um, can ask any of our staff. They are well trained and well versed in, uh, workforce development and connecting them to employers that are seeking positions to, um, E T R, which is Employers Training Resource, the county department, um, or dhs, Department of Human Services if they’re receiving benefits.

I just encouraged the public and residents to visit their local library, connect with them, how can they volunteer If you like gardening, they can do a gardening program with the kids, you know, they can practice reading. Um, we have the dog therapy program for kids that are nervous about reading and reading out loud so they pet the dogs and get to read, um, and practice at 15 or 20 minutes at a time. 

ZAIDEE: 

Emma, when you visited the McFarland Library, you know, can you just describe again to us who uses, who uses the McFarland library? 

EMMA:

Yeah. Um, I would say, so I went after school and it is a place that a lot of kids go after school. Um, it’s, it is, it’s a place they hang out, it’s a place they see their friends. Um, but you know, when, when city leaders are saying it’s not being used the way it’s supposed to, there’s this idea of you go to the library and you study, you go to the library, you check out books. I, I saw all of that. I saw kids checking out books, asking the library, and for help, finding certain books that they really wanted to read. Um, I spoke to some of the students about what they liked about the library, and some of them said they, I’m allowed to check out more books than I am at school. Um, you know, so all of these kind of traditional, um, uses of the library, those were, those were happening. I saw someone getting tutoring. Um, and, but, you know, I also saw, um, families doing arts and crafts. Um, I saw a lot of kids doing arts and crafts and, um, you know, they were having fun. There’s a little, um, playhouse that toddlers can go to. And so I saw moms using the library, checking things out while their toddlers were playing in a little playhouse area. Um, so I, I saw all sorts of, all sorts of things.

I talked to Jasmine Ciciliano, a 12 year old, and a regular at the library. 

JASMINE:

I started using it around when I was six. My mom would take us there and we would stay there and read or I would check out. 

EMMA:

And, um, you know, she, she said that actually the library helps her a lot with her schoolwork. Um, they have a, um, you know, a small row of computers and those are also really popular among the kids.

JASMINE:

They have computers there and people who can’t take their computer home from school work on the computers. Me myself I do my homework there sometimes. My friends we help each other when we have our homework. We work there in a group until we’re all done. It’s our hangout spot I guess. It’s like our safe space. 

ZAIDEE: 

Emma, you know, it, it seems that there’s real misunderstanding or disagreement around, you know, what a what a library should offer. And, um, you know, can you just tell us, since I know that you’ve been researching libraries statewide, is McFarland alone in this where they offer more than just books and quiet reading? Or do other libraries offer services like this too? 

EMMA:

Oh, yeah. No, this is absolutely the standard. This is how the modern library works. Um, and in terms of services, there’s, there’s kind of been this argument both from city leaders and, um, even some, some public comment, um, about how the point of libraries are just books. Um, which is really out of step with, um, if you talk to just literally any librarian from anywhere, , that’s, um, it’s, it’s not just about books. It’s, it is about, you know, service to the community, providing information, verifying facts, Um, you know, and there’s a lot of discussion about workforce development. Um, the federal government provides quite a bit of money for libraries all across the country on workforce development. Um, and also what I would say is that in terms of saying that any Kern County is providing too many services, I’d say that Kern County Libraries provide, I would say fewer mu you know, many, many fewer services than a lot of, a lot of libraries that I’ve been researching.

I would say that Kern County Libraries to say that they provide too many services is really out of step with, um, a lot of the libraries that I’ve researched. Um, Kern County Libraries do not offer a lot of services compared to, you know, places that you might go in the Bay Area. So, um, you know, I went to Gilroy, a much smaller city, and, you know, the English language classes, um, they offer, I mean, they offer all sorts of things. They offer, um, you know, how to, how to fix your bike. Um, they have a classroom that’s just for adults who’ve never learned how to read. Um, the, the level and extent of services at Kern County is really, really small compared to many, many other libraries across the nation. 

ZAIDEE: 

Andie Sullivan studied library science at San Jose State. And she often looks to San Jose, or San Francisco to see what they’re doing in their libraries.

ANDIE:

I always look to San Jose or San Francisco or Seattle or Salt Lake or Chicago, or la San Diego. It’s those big cities that have, um, good funding streams. I tend to see what kind of programs they do, and then I try to figure out a way, way for us to do something in some capacity. In the same vein, we may not have the funding stream or the staff staffing capacity that those large urban libraries have, but I have staff that care and they wanna do something. So what can we do to augment some of those ideas and put ’em into our libraries so that our residents, you know, can reap some of those benefits? A lot of early learning. I’m very passionate about the zero to five and getting our early learners, um, you know, ready for schools because the, those are the kids that are gonna be in our local workforce in 15 or 20 years. And that matters. And so I, I really stress our early learning activities and opportunities and family, uh, outreach.

When I first started out as a librarian, after I got my degree and we were, I was at Northeast Branch Wilson branch, these are Bakersfield branches there, were open five days a week. They’re two or three days now. Cuz we’ve had to utilize that staff as people have retired or as, um, funding has gotten cut. It, it just becomes, well, how do we keep our presence? Is our presence better one or two days a week in this community or not at all? Right. And for me at least, if it’s one or two days a week, we’re still in that community with the hope that we’ll be able to increase it down the road. So having staff and having quality staff matters, it matters. Makes a difference. 

ZAIDEE: 

Emma, you also recently wrote a long article about the inequities among different, among, among libraries and library funding statewide. Tell me a bit about what you found in that. 

EMMA:

Yeah, so I found that there are these just massive, massive disparities between the way that libraries are funded in California. And a big reason for that is that it’s all locally funded. So it’s up to local governments, whether that’s the county, as is the case in Kern County or a library district or a city. Um, it’s completely up to them to fund. Um, I would say over 95% of funding comes from these local governments. And so, um, you know, if, if a local government doesn’t pony up the funds, there just could not be a community library. And that’s the case actually in some parts of the state. Um, Lason County is one area, a lot of that county is not funded by any library whatsoever. Um, or, you know, as is the case in Kern County, um, you could see really poor funding of libraries and closures of branches. 

Um, so that’s been a problem in Kern County, Merced County. In some of these communities that are, um, you know, the, they’re more impoverished communities. So the Central Valley, um, parts of inland California and north, far northern California, um, you see really, really poor funding of libraries. And a lot of that is because, um, you know, governments don’t have a lot of money. But there’s another piece of it that’s also, um, the politics of funding libraries. And so, um, also there are some areas that have much better funded libraries. And, um, a lot of times it’s because there is a specific sales tax, parcel tax that is dedicated to that. 

Um, and I also wanna go back to the history of Proposition 13. That plays a huge role in the way that libraries are funded, um, in California. So when, um, pro Proposition 13 passed, uh, that decimated, um, funds, particularly for county governments, and you did see quite a few libraries shut down, um, in, in those years, every time, um, a local government would hit, um, hard times, you’d see these slashing of library services. Um, and so just, you know, for an example, um, in Kern County, um, we don’t have any libraries that are open on weekends. We don’t have any libraries that are open after 6:00 PM So for a lot of working families, it’s, you know, really not possible to visit the library. Um, but if you go to better funded areas, they’re, they’re gonna be open longer hours, they’re gonna be open all days of the week, they’ll be open evenings, and they’ll have many more services available when they are open. 

Um, the library facilities are a lot nicer. Um, I say Gilroy a much smaller town than Bakersfield has this incredible gleaming palace of a library. And, you know, I’m, I’m really happy for them. I did get a little emotional going there and seeing just how big these disparities were because we just don’t have things like that, um, in a lot of the Central Valley. Um, and one more piece that I wanna mention is that the state doesn’t provide very, very much funding. I think it’s about 66 cents per California. And, um, in other states that have better funded libraries, they like Ohio. There is this base level of funding that comes through the state, um, which is a little bit more, almost, I would compare it a little, it’s a little closer to the way that schools are funded. So these tax funds are going through the state and then redistributed through libraries. And so, you know, if you go to an area like, um, Appalachian, Ohio, you’re gonna see better funded libraries than you would in kind of comparable areas in, um, in California. Um, they provide almost just shy of half of the funds for local libraries, and they have much better funded libraries. . 

ZAIDEE: 

Are there any alternatives that people have come up with, um, for the police station? 

EMMA:

Okay. Yes. So, County Administrative Officer Ryan Ssap, um, he’s suggested that, um, the police look into using mobile units because they said that this is a very urgent matter, they need to expand quickly. And he said that mobile units would be the best way to do that. And in the meantime, while they’re, while they’re using those mobile units, they could apply for, um, for funds, uh, let’s see, low interest loans, grants, other other sources of funding to build a more permanent, uh, building for the, the police station. 

Yeah, I would say, um, the, um, the administrative kind of arm of the county versus the elected officials, um, have been, um, really, really in favor of keeping this library as it is. Um, they say that it, it is important for the city, for the county, um, you know, for, for literacy rates, for workforce development. Um, they said that they, the phrase he uses, he’s doesn’t wanna see the police cannibalize this library.

ZAIDEE: 

One other thing that I wanted to ask you about is, um, you know, this idea that public safety comes first over library services. Um, you know, some, someone argued that the library is, uh, you an educational service mm-hmm. . So the idea that public safety comes over education, or even just a place for, for young people to hang out recreation mm-hmm. , um, it, you know, it makes me wonder because in one of your stories, you talked about the, the fact of, you know, the small community not having a library, that that might have played into the fact that there was more violence in the community just because like there wasn’t a place for young people to hang out. 

EMMA:

Yeah. Um, and I will add that when I went to the McFarland library, um, some of those young patrons, um, regular patrons, they told me explicitly, this is safety for us. The library is safety. It’s a place where we can go and we can feel safe in the, in the city. Um, and it’s, you know, it’s a small town. There’s not a lot to do. There’s, there’s not a lot to do for young people. Um, you know, I, I asked one, one of the patrons, I said, You know, what do you do when you’re not at the library? She’s like, I don’t know. I jump on my bed, I stay at home. I’m not doing anything. So, you know, there’s a lot of boredom in these cities. Um, and so they’ve, they’ve made that case really explicitly. Um, I, I also went to the town of Planada in Merced County. 

EMMA:

And, um, you know, this is a, a town that’s struggled recently, I’d say, I think they said in the last decade or so with a lot of gang violence. And so the, the town has been working to provide more, um, avenues and places for, um, especially for young people to kind of just hang out and do something positive. So one, um, you know, they were able to redo and revamp some of their parks, which they said was really important. Just having, having a place that families can go and, um, recreate and enjoy themselves, um, you know, after the work day is done. So that was a big priority for them. But they, um, they have not had a library since 2014. So that’s, um, you know, a a library is also a place where people, people can go, they can hang out, they learn, um, you know, they can, there’s pleasure reading. There’s, you can check out DVDs. I mean, there’s all sorts of entertainment positive things. Clubs, um, clubs are really popular. Um, so that’s, yeah, that’s, that’s definitely something that people are making the case that, um, you know, when you’re talking about public safety and public safety needs to be first, that in fact, public libraries do provide public safety. They do provide, um, yeah. Safe places. 

ZAIDEE: 

Andie Sullivan says she doesn’t know why some people seem not to value the library.

ANDIE:

I feel like we always have to struggle just to defend ourselves to exist. And I don’t know why I, I don’t know why. I don’t know if, if that’s this community thing or if that’s a national thing. I hear that struggle in a echoed in a lot of areas around the county, I mean around the country, even in well funded areas. And I sit back and like they have no idea what it’s like to not be funded . If I only had a quarter of what they had , I, I don’t know. I don’t know why we have to struggle all the time and, and fight for our existence. 

CREDITS:

ZAIDEE: 

Thank you for listening to this week’s episode of Education Beat: Getting to the heart of California schools. A production of EdSource.

You can find Emma’s stories at EdSource dot org.

Our producer is Coby McDonald.

Special thanks to our guests Andie Sullivan and Emma Gallegos. And to the kids at the McFarland Library.

Our CEO is Anne Vasquez.

Our theme music is from Blue Dot Sessions.

This episode was brought to you by the Silver Giving Foundation.

I’m Zaidee Stavely. Join me next week. And subscribe so you won’t miss an episode.