By Jordan Meadows
Staff Writer
Library workers and residents gathered outside the Wake County Commons Building off Poole Road in east Raleigh Monday afternoon to protest what they describe as chronic understaffing and cuts that are hollowing out library services across the county.
Wake Library Workers United organized the demonstration ahead of a public hearing on the county's fiscal year 2027 budget. The union says a 30% cut to temporary staff hours has forced the library system to scale back family storytime, adult programming, offsite library events, online chat support, and job and technology help appointments.
The county budgets for 285 library worker positions across 23 locations. Workers say understaffing and reduced temporary hours have produced high burnout and turnover throughout the system.
Wake County Public Libraries Director Tammy Baggett disputed the union's account in a statement. She said the modest decline in programming was largely attributable to the temporary closure of West Regional Library during renovations, and that attendance actually grew by more than 11,000 participants over the same period. Specifically regarding temporary staffing, Baggett noted that the library system significantly expanded its use of those hours between 2020 and 2023, then pulled back after exceeding its temporary staffing budget in fiscal year 2024.
The Wake County Board of Commissioners signaled their stance on a separate but related library matter during a meeting in which they discussed the site of a new Athens Drive High School Community Library. At a special meeting Monday, where Deputy County Manager Ashley Jacobs presented a plan for a new library, five of the seven commissioners indicated support for a 2.6-acre Well Fed Community Garden site directly across the street from Athens Drive High School in Southwest Raleigh, over a 12-acre school system-owned site near Tryon Road and Yates Mill Road, roughly three miles away inside Cary town limits.
The decision will be funded by a $142 million library bond voters approved in 2024. County staff negotiated a purchase agreement with Well Fed Community Garden owners Arthur and Anya Gordon for $1.586 million, down from an initial asking price of $1.8 million. The Well Fed site would serve 125,148 residents within a 10-minute drive, compared to 99,874 for the Tryon Road location, and offers stronger public transit access.
As Commissioner Tara Waters noted, the Tryon Road site has no bus stop, with the nearest GoTriangle stop two-thirds of a mile away.
Commissioners Susan Evans and Vickie Adamson backed the Tryon Road site, citing its size and room for future expansion. County guidelines call for four to five acres for a community branch and seven to eight for a site with expansion potential.
“We’ve had libraries that were simply too small for the communities they serve, and when there’s no room to expand, we can’t meet those needs,” Adamson said. “Moving the library would place it on a larger site, but it would also reduce the number of residents within a 10-minute drive time,” she added.
Evans, whose district covers both proposed sites, said she is thinking beyond the immediate neighborhood.
"I'm focused on how we serve the entire region that is Southwest Raleigh, Swift Creek, unincorporated area going down toward Lake Wheeler, all of that needs to be served by this library as effectively as possible, and we need to plan for the years to come," she said. "The pro for the Well Fed Garden site is it is in the existing community, it has walkability, it's close to the high school. But it is not the optimal size for what we would like to see, and it doesn't allow us any ability for expansion of the library … That causes me some concern."
Commissioner Safiyah Jackson countered that the area is already ringed by regional libraries—Southeast Regional and Oberlin Regional in Raleigh, and Cary Regional and Eva Perry Regional in Cary—making a community-scale branch the right call.
"There is something to be said about a community library sitting in the middle of the regional libraries and presenting all of those residents with the option of having a quaint community library experience as well as the choice of a regional library," Jackson said. "We should be thinking about growth in this county … but I don't get the sense … that the growth in this area is putting pressure on these other libraries such that this one has to be regional to account for that much more growth."
The pending vote follows years of advocacy from Athens Drive residents who pushed to keep the library close to home. Several attended Monday's meeting and celebrated when commissioners tipped their hand.
