Lovers of the Charleston County library located in South Windermere have spoken: “leave us be.”
Sunday, County Councilman Colleen Condon and Janet Segal, chair of the board of trustees for the county library system, met with more than 60 area residents to discuss future plans for improving the system.
Segal has been involved in a three-year planning process that has been studying possible changes for a library system that hasn’t received a major influx of new funding since 1986, the year of its last referendum.   County staffers, library bigwigs, and hired architecture and planning firms have been digging into the system’s current situation.
Pushing for change has been an explosion in population over the past 28 years, the growth of housing in areas not serviced by current libraries, the scarcity of parking at many of the 16 buildings, outdated buildings woefully lacking in current technologies and space for kids, teens, and community meetings.
The result was a plan to ask County Council to approve a $103 million spending plan to be included on the November election day as a referendum.
Segal stressed that “nothing is written in stone” in the plan, and that more public planning meetings will be held in the future to guide how the public’s tax dollars are spent. “This is giving us a money limit,” she said of a plan that included a six-year build out horizon.
Segal presented “Plan A” at the South Windermere location last Sunday, a day the facility is usually closed. “Plan A” included building a 40,000-square-foot library along the “Folly Corridor” that would service both James Island and West Ashley, as part of the overall county-wide plan.
“Plan A” would necessitate the closing of the small and outdated South Windermere neighborhood library, and would allow for staff to be reassigned to the larger, up-to-date facility. That facility began its 50th year this month, according to a county staffer.
The plan was not well received by many in attendance.
“Understand, when we say ‘Folly Corridor,’ we mean somewhere on James Island,” said Condon, fanning the flames. Condon tried presenting four different other plans, hastily rendered on the back of a printed poster to little support.
Condon, whose first-ever job was stacking and straightening books there as a teen in the mid-‘80s, quickly jumped up and tried to take an impromptu vote as to who wanted to keep the facility as it was. The status quo won big.
Segal said that the reaction had been much the same during a similar meeting on James Island.
County Councilperson Anna B. Johnson, who represents James Island, said that it was the same on both sides of the Stono bridge. “We don’t want to drive over here, and you don’t want to drive over there,” said Johnson.
Segal reminded the assembled, though, that was not the longest drive. Especially when compared to families in the northern and southern tips of the county who find themselves 13 miles from a library book.
Putting down their proverbial torches and pitchforks for a moment, the audience began to ask questions about what could be done to maintain South Windermere and take care of needs in the hinterlands.
A host of other options were bandied about: What about the empty Food Lion on St. Andrews Boulevard? What about leaving us be, but building other neighborhood facilities out the Hwy. 17 corridor? What about adding a second floor to South Windermere?
Segal reiterated that even though staff was three years in, this meeting was still at the beginning of the process. Should County Council approve the measure, and the public vote for it in November, Segal said intense planning charettes involving the public would be held to further refine the plan.
The public is invited to hear Segal speak to local business owners on Wednesday, April 23 at the monthly meeting of the West Ashley-James Island Business Association (WAJIBA) at the Holiday Inn Riverview (round Holiday Inn). Admission is $10 for members and $20 for non-members and includes lunch.

Pin It on Pinterest