Roughly two-thirds of the Kanawha Countians who showed up to polls last November supported restoring funding to the local public library system that a 2013 state Supreme Court ruling took away.
This week marks the anniversary of residents' vote for increased property taxes to support the system, which last month restored Sunday hours at its main location and brought back the previously annual West Virginia Book Festival after two years without one. Terry Wooten, the system's marketing and development manager, said the 10-branch system now has 129 employees, up from a low point of fewer than 120, and is budgeted to hire back up to 144 this year.
Library system Director Alan Engelbert summed up the progress to the Gazette-Mail last month: "We're cooking."
"We were having to close facilities just because someone called in sick," Engelbert said of the staffing situation before the levy passed. "We were that far down."
Since the levy passed, the system has also increased workers' pay - Jennifer Pauer, chairwoman of the library board's personnel committee, said it was having trouble retaining and recruiting employees - and has commissioned a compensation study for more possible pay changes. It's also continuing its effort to possibly build or buy a new main branch location to replace the one on the corner of Capitol and Quarrier streets in downtown Charleston. The levy money can't be used for a new main branch, though the search for one was sidelined during the funding crisis.
In 2013, Kanawha County Schools won a decade-old state Supreme Court case, allowing it not to fund the local libraries. The school system regardless then agreed to host a levy election to support the library system, which legally can't tax on its own and was facing a 40 percent budget decrease. But Kanawha County Schools tacked on more than $20 million to the proposed levy for its own purposes.
Pete Thaw, who was then president of the school board and is still a member, campaigned against that levy, which voters overwhelmingly rejected.
The school system hosted a levy again last November, without proposed money for schools and with a public relations campaign supporting the libraries. About 66 percent of voters gave their support.
Wooten said Thursday the levy, which is providing about $3 million annually to the library for the next five years, has not only allowed the system to restore some of its regular staffing, but pay part-timers additional hours to staff the book festival, which landed popular author Neil Gaiman as a speaker. She said the attendance for this year's event in Charleston - about 2,500 people on Oct. 23 and 2,000 on Oct. 24, including for the various speakers and other draws, including the marketplace where West Virginia writers sold their works - was similar to past years.
She said the used book sale, which attendance figures weren't individually tallied for, raised almost $34,000 for the library - the second-highest amount ever raised.
West Virginia poet laureate Marc Harshman's public interview of Gaiman, author of novels like "American Gods" and the graphic novels in the "Sandman" series, drew a crowd of around 2,000, which Wooten said was likely a close second to the biggest draw the festival has had: "The Notebook" author Nicholas Sparks, who came in 2010. This year, Jodi Picoult, author of "My Sister's Keeper," attracted about 1,000 people, Wooten said, and Homer Hickam, a Mountain State native and author of "Rocket Boys" and "Carrying Albert Home," drew the next-biggest crowd at around 350.
Wooten even said one author - Brooklyn, New York resident Jaqueline Woodson, author of the novel "Brown Girl Dreaming" and picture books like "Coming on Home Soon" - even drove from Washington, D.C., to attend her scheduled speech at the festival after she missed her connecting flight to Charleston.
"She was just wonderful after driving for five hours," said Wooten, who said staff have already started planning for next year's book festival.
"We're definitely very grateful to the public and the community for rallying around and supporting the library and getting the levy passed," Wooten said. "And we're doing our best to provide wonderful service."
Reach Ryan Quinn at ryan.quinn@wvgazette.com, 304-348-1254 or follow @RyanEQuinn on Twitter.