The Frazier Park Branch Library was referred to as “the only 21st Century library in Kern County,” when a group called Advocates for Library Enhancement (ALE) came to a Friends of the Library meeting Saturday, Sept. 12 to talk about the proposed privatization of the Kern County system.

Former Kern County Library Director Diane Duquette was credited with having the foresight and persistence to pursue a state grant more than 15 years ago to make the current library possible.

Haunted Library

Indeed, the lovely building has become a center of community activities. On October 24 there will be a community-wide “Trunk or Treat” event as part of a Haunted Library celebration.
That will begin with telling ghost stories from 3:30 to 5 p.m. Then a Trunk or Treat will be held in the parking lot from 5 to 7 p.m. All are invited to wear costumes. Businesses and families are invited to set up “trunk or treat” stations to provide goodies and some scary fun.

On the same day, a Dia de los Muertos table will be set up inside, where people may place objects in memory of deceased loved ones. That display will be maintained through the month.

Photo Contest

Mel Weinstein announced the third annual Mountain Youth Photo Contest. Entries will be accepted from now until November 28. The files must be at least 1MB in size. Categories will be by age: 6-10, 11-15, 16-18.

All subjects are welcome, but only one entry per person. Submissions may be brought during business hours to several places arouond the mountain, which will be announced shortly after submission forms are published. The Mountain Enterprise office in Frazier Park is one.

Prizes are $100, $50 and $25 for first, second and third place in each category. This year the Friends of the Library (FOL) will pay for the awards. There will be a display and reception at the library on December 19.

That will be followed a few weeks later by a reception, show and pizza party at the Artworks Community Gallery in Pine Mountain Village. All proceeds from photo sales will go to the youths. Last year, Weinstein said, one young man sold $260 in multiple prints of his photo.

Privatization

Miranda Lomeli-O’Reilly and Mandy Walters of ALE gave a presentation about the state of the 25-branch Kern County Library system. They said that Kern County had the lowest per-capita budget of any county in California.

“The state average is $25 per capita. In 2014, Kern County budgeted just $8.59 per capita for its libraries, and has said there will be 5% cuts every year for the next three years,” they said. A chart they provided indicated that the library’s per capita budget is about 25% lower than the per capita budget in 2004.

They also said Kern County is only one of two county library systems out of 58 in California which relies solely on the county’s general fund for its budget. They said a 0.125% dedicated sales tax (or 12.5 cents per $100 ) in Kern County could fund the library with no money at all from the county’s general fund. Their data can be seen at kernlibraryadvocates.com.

The FOL voted to assist ALE’s outreach efforts with a $1,000 FOL grant and a $1,000 matching grant from two members of the group.—PH

Photo captions:

Advocates for Library Enhancement Miranda Lomeli-O’Reilly, her children and Mandy Walters spoke about Kern County’s library privatization efforts.

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This is part of the September 18, 2015 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.

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