What's at stake?
Discussions to study privatizing the county’s library system may fizzle out as the politics keep shifting.
Fresno County’s efforts to study privatizing their library system appear to be caught in a holding pattern. Not only does the move lack the required supermajority of the board to push any future efforts forward this year — they’ve now backed away from a public workshop, letting the new crop of supervisors take it up after the November election.
Instead, county officials will post the study about the possible privatization move on their website later this fall, county spokesperson Sonja Dosti confirmed Tuesday.
But even with potentially three new members joining the Board of Supervisors next year, it’s hard to see the politics on the charged topic changing in favor of privatization — for now.
The shift from workshop to online report came after Supervisor Buddy Mendes, who will retire at the end of the year, said the board should reconsider how they receive the information since “I don’t know if there’s consensus on this board to push this forward.” Mendes’ comments were made at the board’s Sept. 22 meeting, a day after Fresnoland reported a lack of supermajority support.
“If the board in the future decides they want to do it, then it’s their choice,” Mendes said, before later adding, “That’s something, I think, for a new board to look at, not this board.”
“We don’t necessarily want to have to discuss anything that doesn’t have support,” Supervisor Luis Chavez said, agreeing with the decision.
Privatization talks are not new. Prior efforts to privatize the library occurred in 2023 between the county and Library Systems & Services, the same firm preparing the upcoming report. A proposal from the firm concluded that the county would save around $8 million annually, but talks fizzled out anyway.
Still, city and labor leaders are working to create a joint opposition against library privatization to continue to mount pressure against the county’s efforts, should the politics change.
Fresno City Councilmember Mike Karbassi hosted a joint news conference on Monday, alongside Chavez and a broad coalition of local librarians and union members, to announce his intent to introduce a citywide resolution to formally oppose the privatization efforts.
Monday’s news conference, held outside the Sunnyside Regional Library, follows a growing mobilization to oppose privatization from the local Service Employees International Union chapter, SEIU Local 521, which represents public and private sector workers in several Bay Area and Central Valley counties. The union, which also represents many of the county’s library workers, has been closely monitoring and building support for their opposition, citing worker’s concerns for potential layoffs and a reduction in work hours should privatization go through.
Fresno is the city with the highest concentration of libraries and, by extension, librarians in the county. It houses 11 of the county’s 34 libraries.
Karbassi, a northwest councilmember who is also running for a seat on the Board of Supervisors, said that the proposal to privatize the library system was “terrible” and “regressive.” He said the city’s resolution, if approved, should help signal to the board that the county’s biggest stakeholder in the library system is “not going to stand for” talks of privatization.
“We should never put profits ahead of the welfare of our children,” Karbassi said. “That is exactly what privatization will do. It is a stupid idea. And ‘stupid’ is an appropriate word. I read about it in the library.”
The privatization effort has an uphill battle should Supervisor Garry Bredefeld — who originally requested the study — continue to pursue it in 2027 with newcomers on the board, since it will require at least four affirmative votes to go through.
Karbassi’s opponent, Kerman Mayor Maria Pacheco, said she was also a “hard no” on the privatization effort.
With Chavez already in opposition, and with a supermajority necessary, whoever wins that seat would potentially be a deciding vote for privatization.
Margaret Mims, who will replace Mendes next year after winning her election outright in June, did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story.
Clovis Mayor Pro Tem Diane Pearce told Fresnoland on Tuesday that she has not yet made up her mind on the matter, and will wait to see what the published county report says before making a final decision.
Pearce has announced her intention to run for Supervisor Nathan Magsig’s seat, should he win a spot in the state legislature in November. Clovis Mayor Vong Mouanoutoua, who has also announced intentions to run for Magsig’s seat, did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story.
Proponents of library privatization have argued that the measure can save money for local governments. Chavez, however, said at Monday’s news conference that those positives are largely overblown and require nuance.
Chavez said that he was informed of preliminary data from the county that is expected to show, among other things, that Fresno can save about $8 million annually if they choose to privatize the library. However, he raised concerns on Monday about how those cost savings are achieved, labeling the methods as a “bait and switch” tactic.
Specifically, the supervisor said he has seen a reduction of staff and services and even the closure of library branches from different areas around the country where the local government has chosen to privatize their library system.
“Oftentimes these private corporations have one accountability system, one major motivation to do this,” Chavez said, “and that’s profits.”
The proposal the county received in 2023 came from Library Systems & Services, the nation’s biggest company in this space. Chavez said that the county is looking to partner with the same company for this round of privatization talks.
The 2023 proposal offered the county a 10-year contract with the company in a deal that they said would deliver Fresno with about $85 million in budgetary savings through the decade-long commitment period. The contract, among other things, said Fresno would be able to benefit from the potential of additional staff, expanded programming, and “budget stability” though the fixed costs in the 10-year contract.
The proposal also said existing county library staff would transition to work with the company.
SEIU members and librarians who spoke on Monday said that they’ve seen privatization negatively affect libraries through similar cost-saving tactics. Though the practice has become more common in recent years, especially in rural parts of the country like Fresno, it is still regularly seen as a controversial move.
Fresno County first broached discussions on privatization following a meeting earlier this year when the county’s board of supervisors decided in a split 3-2 vote, divided among ideological lines, to prevent the library system from participating in Pride Month celebrations.
Critics of the board’s vote to end the library’s participation in Pride Month festivities said the supervisors were not engaging in responsible governance but instead attacking LGBTQ+ Fresnans and their friends and family. Many of those same criticisms have been used to describe the county’s talks of privatization.
Riley Talford, president of the Fresno-based SEIU Local 521 chapter, said at Monday’s news conference that it’s reckless to label privatization as a political good. Talford, who is also running for a Fresno Unified Board of Trustees seat, said that the heart of the issue was much more bipartisan, as privatization could lead to layoffs and a loss of resources to the communities libraries serve.
“The Fresno County Library belongs to all of us,” Talford said. “It is not liberal or conservative, progressive or radical. It is a cornerstone of democracy, a place where people read, learn, and access essential services and participate in community life without an admission fee or without fear of exclusion.”
The Fresno County Library system was first established in 1910 with the assistance of philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, though its services date as early as the late 19th Century.
Most of the budget for the library system is funded through Measure B, a countywide sales tax that was first approved by county voters in 1998, and has been comfortably renewed by residents three times since, with the most recent time being in 2012. Measure B is up for renewal in 2028.
It is not immediately clear how privatization would affect Measure B renewal efforts.
On top of the potential for job losses, speakers at Monday’s press conference stressed the potential for lost services.
Joel Perez, a librarian at the Sunnyside Regional Library and a member of SEIU Local 521, said that he had fond memories of growing up and visiting the Gillis Library branch as a child. After getting his master’s degree in Library Information Sciences, Perez was hired by the Gillis Branch.
Perez drew special attention to the San Joaquin Valley Library System, a network of county library systems that partner with each other to get local residents books. He said it’d be “a blow” to the system if privatization were to occur, as the county could be forced to bow out of the system. He also cited Measure B’s consistent track record of high approval as a reason to oppose privatization.
“Any one of the supervisors willing to consider privatization is actively toying with subverting the will of the people of Fresno County,” Perez said, “who have voted overwhelmingly time and again over decades to endow our community with libraries. Respect the people. Keep our library public. The library is a treasure. ”
Shannon Wise, President of the Friends of the Fresno County Library, and other speakers on Monday also said that the economic viability of the library is a moot point. Some services, they argued, should not be focused on making money.
Discussions on the financial viability of government services are not new.
Among the most prominent examples of these discussions at the federal level are talks surrounding the United States Postal Service, the country’s affordable mail-carrying system that has been operating at a financial loss for decades.
These discussions have largely seen federal representatives weigh the cost of allowing the USPS to stay affordable and serve as a largely accessible public service instead of a federal program that generates revenue for the nation. Talks of privatization have also been broached with USPS, though the move could hurt the country’s rural communities.
The Fresno City Council is expected to vote on the resolution to formally oppose library privatization at their next meeting on Thursday, Oct. 8.
