GOP Latino mayor is reviving McFarland, USA
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Cristy Aguilar, 42, of McFarland, California, talks about how immigrant women transformed an abandoned lot of burned potato shacks into a community garden. Photo: Russell Contreras/Axios
A Latino Republican mayor in a majority Democratic Central California city has dramatically turned his community around by fighting corruption, focusing on public safety and revamping abandoned lots into gardens.
Why it matters: Saul Ayon, a retired sheriff's deputy, tells Axios that McFarland, California, is an example of how a community of farm workers and immigrants can come together despite political tensions.
Context: McFarland is a city known to many Americans as the setting for the 2015 Disney movie, "McFarland, USA," starring Kevin Costner as real-life Jim White, a coach who takes a group of poor Mexican American high school farm workers to cross-country title contention.
- The city of 14,000 just north of Bakersfield is 90% Latino, mostly farm workers. More than a quarter of residents live in poverty.
- In recent years, the city has been plagued by crime, corruption, financial mismanagement, allegations of sexual misconduct and a soaring crime rate.
Ayon tells Axios he got involved in McFarland politics after a niece was assaulted at a library and the city's lone police officer never showed.
- At the urging of the real Jim White, who still lives in McFarland, Ayon successfully ran for City Council in 2020 and then mayor in 2022.
- "I was not interested in politics in any way, but I just couldn't take it anymore," Ayon says.
- "We had drivebys, the water pressure was low, and we hadn't had an audit in years, so something needed to be done."
Zoom in: Ayon rode to victory thanks to a coalition of immigrants, Mexican Americans, and a small conservative faction led by White.
- The newly elected mayor immediately ordered an audit of the city's finances and boosted its credit to fix one of the city's water treatment plants.
- He then got U.S. Rep. David Valadao, a Republican, to help bring millions of dollars to help with road projects. "No one (had) ever asked him," says Ayon.
- Ayon expanded the city's police department to more than a dozen staff and officers, got a K9 unit and a drone and installed high-tech license plate recognition tools in crucial high-crime areas.
- Ayon predicts that when new FBI numbers come out showing 2023 and 2024 stats, McFarland will see dramatic drops in crime.
During a recent Axios tour of the city, teens were seen playing in a city park at 9:30 pm and others walking home throughout the city.
- Volunteers were finishing work on a new community garden in a lot that once housed charred, abandoned potato shacks where gang members hid to rob unsuspecting pedestrians.
- "This would not have been possible just a few years ago," White says.
What they're saying: "The mayor has been great and listened to us when we wanted to create this garden," Cristy Aguilar, 42, originally from Chiapas, Mexico, tells Axios in Spanish.
- Carmen Zavala, 50, originally from Michoacan, Mexico, tells Axios she's been heartened to see how much the city has changed since Ayon has become mayor.
Yes, but: Some critics resisted Ayon's plan to turn the city's library into a new police department.
- The city later received a $5 million grant to build a new police facility and keep the library.
The bottom line: Ayon says McFarland is an example of when elected officials put their partisan differences aside and work with each other to tackle problems highlighted by residents.
- "Listen, I'll work with anyone who wants to help this city," Ayon said. "Because if I don't, well, I'll get voted out."
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