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What is this? And where is it?
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This is the view of what once was an oak woodland and Frazier Mountain Park. It is the south side (rear) of the Kern County Library. Residents were promised at repeated public meetings that the heritage oaks at the site would be left standing and the site would maintain an aesthetic quality in keeping with the values of the community. Three oak trees were destroyed due to the failure of the contractor to comply with contact guidelines. Architect Max Williams, who lives behind the site (now looking at this view) has criticized the apparent failure of Kern County to supervise construction in accord with the promises they made to the community. Letters from neighbors—asking about invasive lighting, a gate in the fence so historic pedestrian paths would not be interrupted and now these aggressive bars—have not been answered, Williams says.
by Max Williams
I am no longer looking forward to visiting the new Frazier Park Branch Library and in fact will do everything I can to boycott its use.
The fencing that was installed this week (see the attached photos) is not only a colossal waste of our valuable tax dollars, it is one of the most offensive and insulting gestures that a public building can impose on its neighbors.
Instead of the friendly and inviting public facility that our neighborhood was promised, we are presented with the image of a prison.
This is a complete travesty and a massive failure by the Kern County Library design team. I will be using this image in all of my architectural design studios as the perfect example of bad public design and encouraging all of my architectural colleagues to do the same.
A library should be a friendly, inviting and accessible community facility, and this project is everything but. It is my hope that you will do everything in your power to correct this horrible mistake of a building.
And we have still not received any response to our request on February 28, 2011 for information regarding the parking lot lights.
We should not need to remind anyone that this library belongs to the Frazier Park residents, not the Kern County administrators who are making these extremely poor decisions that will have a lasting detrimental effect on our neighborhood.
Your entire design team needs to remember that this library is constructed by conditioned entitlement, on property with designated low density residential zoning and with questionable CEQA approval.
All of this fencing is installed contrary to every site plan that was presented to the neighbors and community, and contrary to the language and plans that were presented to the state as part of the funding grant.
Max Williams is a Frazier Park resident and a practicing Los Angeles architect who lives directly behind the new library, where this fence has been placed. The neighborhood has been asking for a gate so they could enter the library grounds without having to walk around the entire property. That request has not been granted.
The library’s closest neighbors once enjoyed the view of an oak canopy and Frazier Mountain Park from their front windows. That is replaced by what is shown in these photos.
The director of Kern County Libraries, Diane Duquette was invited to respond to Williams’ OpEd. She declined, saying she has referred the matter to architects, Jim Nardini of the firm CWA AIA, Inc. and Mark Russell, division manager for Kern County Construction Services Department.—Editor
This is part of the April 15, 2011 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.
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