Fresno County Supervisors put an end to libraries participating in Pride Month celebrations 

In a split 3-2 vote Tuesday, the Fresno County Board of Supervisors barred the county library from participating in local Pride Month celebrations.

The vote fell along political lines, with the conservative majority, composed of Board Chair Garry Bredefeld, and supervisors Buddy Mendes and Nathan Magsig, voting to reject the library’s participation. 

The hearing revolved around a pair of items that, if approved, would have allowed the  library to spend money to host a booth at this year’s Fresno Rainbow Pride event, and to allow the library to recognize and celebrate Pride Month for the next five years. 

Bredefeld has become the new face of the board’s crusade against county departments participating in LGBTQ+-related events. 

“To that I say hell no,” Bredefeld said, specifically referring to the five-year commitment. 

The requests made by the library department at Tuesday’s meeting are not necessarily new. The county’s library and public health departments, for example, have recognized or participated in local Pride events before.  

However, the board passed a pair of policies last year that changed the status quo for how departments participate in local events. Specifically, they passed legislation to force departments to gain board approval before spending their discretionary funding, and before they can celebrate a holiday in their official capacity as county employees.  

LGBTQ+ advocates at the time said these policies were attacks on their community, and that they would be used as a tool to prevent county workers from participating in Pride events. The board did not necessarily disagree with those claims. 

Bredefeld posted on social media last week, inviting constituents who shared his views to show up to Tuesday’s meeting to voice their opinion. 

That post set off a social media reaction among more progressive local advocates, who rallied support to try and stop the effort.  

At the Tuesday meeting, building security restricted entry into the chambers after the board chambers reached capacity well before the meeting started. There were dozens of  individuals who were barred from entry at the start of the meeting.

The hearing’s public comment period saw over a dozen speakers opposing and supporting the proposition. Both sides were capped to just 15 speakers and only a minute of speaking time.

Residents in favor of the library participating in Pride month events ranged from local community organizers, drag queens and local faith-based leaders. Madison Neil, a local resident, said that the board was responsible for “manufactured outrage” surrounding the library’s role in Pride.

“Some of you erroneously believe that you can legislate us out of existence,” said Drew Harbaugh, co-chair of PFlag, a Fresno-based LGBTQ+ advocacy organization. 

Tracy Cisneros, a volunteer coordinator for Fresno Rainbow Pride, also spoke during public comment. Not wanting money to be cited as a hurdle for the board’s approval, she said that the event would waive the fees for the library and all other county departments who wanted to participate in the event.

County documents show that the library was requesting $125 to participate in this year’s Fresno Rainbow Pride, an event that follows the annual Pride parade. 

But many also showed up to oppose the library’s participation. 

Among them was Diane Pearce, Clovis Mayor Pro-Tempore, and a potential candidate for the county’s board of supervisors. 

Pearce said that the library’s promotion of LGBTQ+ literature was part of an “indoctrination” and in the hopes to promote a political agenda.  

“(It) strays into inappropriate and unwelcome advocacy,” Pearce said. 

Others argued that, the same way they don’t impose their faith on others, they do not want to see LGBTQ+-related materials forced upon them or their children. 

Many of those members in opposition would cite their faith when speaking on Tuesday. 

“Homosexuality is a sin. There’s no argument against that,” said Bill Scott, a public commenter Tuesday who added that he had two brothers who are gay and that he “love(s) them dearly.”

Other speakers, who were parents, said they would prefer the responsibility of talking about LGBTQ+-related issues falling on parents, not with outside organizations like the library. 

Board Vice Chair Luis Chavez and Supervisor Brian Pacheco held more progressive views on the matter, and they dissented with the board’s conservative majority.  Frustrated, Chavez said on Tuesday that “it seems to be a yearly tradition” that the board discusses LGBTQ+-related issues at their meetings. 

“I am certainly not going to support banning books, censoring them, hiding them, or placing them in the closet of the back of a library with the illusion that if we do that, somehow gay folks are going to disappear from our community,” Chavez said.

Though Bredefeld and Chavez are only in their second year in office, this is the fourth year in a row that the board has drawn large public scrutiny from their constituents and the media in library and LGBTQ+-related issues.

In 2023, Bredefeld’s predecessor Steve Brandau introduced legislation to form a new committee to review children’s books at public libraries. The effort carried on for over a year, and only died after state lawmakers passed legislation banning such practices.  

A copy of an internal memo created by the county’s legal counsel obtained by Fresnoland shows that the board’s attorneys believe that book bans are out of bounds, but that the governing body does have the right to carry out Tuesday’s actions. 

The library’s department head Sally Gomez said at Tuesday’s meeting that the librarians choose which holidays to celebrate based on community requests. She said they typically go where they’re invited and that they only reject requests for logistical issues, largely due to constraints in resources and budget, or if the event seeks to make money out of the library’s participation. 

Acknowledging the resource and budget limits, Magsig said that the library should consider going to events that give the county the most “bang for our buck,” and should create “a methodology where we reject and don’t go to certain things.” 

Though before the vote, Bredefeld held what some would consider a victory lap during his comments on Tuesday. The supervisor championed his efforts last year to successfully remove “DEI language” from the county’s hiring materials last year, and the passing of both guardrail policies.  

Bredefeld added that the library may continue to see scrutiny past Tuesday’s meeting. 

“I have a feeling we’re going to have a problem in 2028 and I think this board may have to look at privatizing the library in light of what’s going on,” Bredefeld said in a comment that resulted in a wave of boos from the crowd. 

The library gets over half their budget from Measure B, a decades-old one-eighth cent sales tax. It was last renewed in 2012, and is expected to come back before voters for renewal in 2028. 

“Taxpayers are asking hard questions about where their money is really going and the answers are not good, and you’re not helping,” Bredefeld told Gomez from the dais on Tuesday.

A wave of applause showered the room after the board voted to reject the library’s participation in this year’s Pride month. Those who came were hoping to overturn the board’s decision left feeling somber, not really knowing where to go from there. 

“It’s very sad,” said some walking out the chambers. Many embraced each other following their disappointment at the outcome. 

“We have to vote these white men out,” said a frustrated Diana Oliva, board president of Fresno’s Casita Feliz, in reference to the board’s conservative majority. 

The board’s political leaning is not likely to change anytime soon. 

Pacheco and Mendes, a Democrat and Republican respectively, are likely to have their seats replaced by like-minded political candidates in this year’s elections. Magsig, a Republican who could relinquish his seat pending his bid for state senate, would also likely be replaced by a conservative.