BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — If you were to come to the Kern County Library’s Lamont Branch on any given Tuesday, you’ll be met with a locked door. In recent history, the Library has been open on Thursdays and Fridays. On Tuesday, the Kern County Board of Supervisors approved their new budget for the 2023-2024 fiscal year and with that budget comes more money for the library system to increase hours at eight different branches all across the Kern community and make libraries more accessible for everyone.
“Super excited that we're going to be expanding Hours with the Measure K funding at our Boron location, Buttonwillow, Fraser Park, Kern River Valley, Lamont and Mojave, Rathbun and Rosemand,” said Farha Daredia. “Having this expansion will let us have more services available, like more reading materials, more technology services.”
Daredia did note that while they have now secured the funding, it will take time before they are able to fully expand the library hours around the county.
“There's going to be some time where we're going to have to hire new staff, we're going to have to train them and things like that. But we're trying to get it up and running as soon as we can,” said Daredia.
There was also no shortage of excitement Tuesday from Kern County Animal Services. This year’s budget allotted them funding for five more full time employees to take care of shelter animals. The staff slated to be hired by the department do a little bit of everything when it comes to taking care of the animals during a time where the department’s shelter is constantly over capacity.
“Animal care workers, they clean feed, socialize. They're, they're the ones that are trying to rehabilitate the animals that come to us,” said Nick Cullen, Director of Kern County Animal Services.
With the department constantly overloaded with animals, staff are becoming burnt out and the extra funding allotted is being seen as a life preserver for the future.
“It's a struggle. It's a daily struggle, just to – just to provide a basic level of humane care. And so I know that they feel like okay, There's, there's some troops coming, you know, and it's going to help us just to increase the level of humane care we can provide and I know that they're there. They're happy about that.”
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