The Renton City Council will decide Monday night whether to move forward with an $18 million bond issue to pay for two new libraries in the city, including one downtown.

The vote comes against a backdrop of continuing community debate over whether to move from the current library over the Cedar River to a spot near the Renton Transit Center.

Some opposed to the relocation point to safety concerns. Tuesday night, the day after the City Council voted to give final consideration to the bond measure, a 14-year-old Renton boy was shot outside Big 5 Sports where the new library would be built.

The council’s Finance Committee had recommended the council approve the sale of the 10-year bonds. The city also will build a new library in the Highlands.

Council member Don Persson, who chairs the Finance Committee, Monday night urged the council to consider approving the measure when it comes up for a final vote next Monday, saying now might be the best time for interest rates on the bonds.

He also said there was some flexibility written into the measure, so that the current downtown location could still be retrofitted.

Council member Greg Taylor liked the new wording, saying it doesn’t indicate specifically which site has been selected for the funds and it still allows for the possibility of public involvement at some point.

Council member Rich Zwicker said the site had already been selected, meaning the Big 5 location. He said the committee report is written vaguely, as if writing a blank check that indebted the city with no firm decisions. Zwicker approved the commitee report, but he first said he wanted to take a stand on the report’s wording.

Council member Marcie Palmer was the lone dissenter; council member Randy Corman was absent.

In an interview on Tuesday, Palmer said she agrees with Zwicker that the decision has already been made to move the downtown library; and although the council could use the bonds to retrofit the current library, they probably won’t.

Palmer said it doesn’t make sense to abandon a functioning library for a completely new property and new construction. “I understand all the reasons for it; I just don’t agree with it,” she said.

She said she thinks constructing a new downtown library is a waste of money considering the present economy. Palmer said the words “bait and switched” and “hoodwinked” keep coming up from the public and she understands their sentiments.

Palmer voted against annexing into the King County Library System and thinks most voters didn’t really understand what they were voting for in that election.

She said she wants the downtown core revitalized as much as anyone, but doesn’t think the library move is the right way to handle it.

John Galluzzo, a Newcastle resident and Renton business owner, took a different approach at Monday night’s meeting during the public comments.

As the chair of the Renton Chamber of Commerce, he read a statement from Bill Taylor, chamber president.

“With the loss of the Spirit of Washington Dinner Train, we no longer have the benefit of a destination attraction in our downtown and our destination  retailers are either in the valley or at the Landing,” said Galluzzo. “The downtown needs an ongoing, viable, year-round destination to provide the human traffic that can reignite its revitalization.”

Galluzzo added that the chamber is looking to moving into the downtown core. He acknowledged that The Landing created turmoil among downtown retailers when it opened, but hoped the relocation of the downtown library and the chamber would have a great economic impact.

Ruth Shilling of Renton expressed her outrage with the decision to move the library downtown. Addressing the council, she said she informally surveyed her neighbors and heard stories about how the downtown library has been an asset to the community. She questioned why the council couldn’t be patient and get permits to retrofit the current location just as they had when the library over the river was initially constructed.

Suzi Ure said the plan to come up with new Renton libraries has been in the works since 2007 and 2008 when the Library Master Plan came out. Ure lives in Renton and is on the Library Advisory Board. She said prior to talks with KCLS, the libraries were deemed inadequate.

She agreed that the current library is iconic, but to deal with all the agencies required to upgrade it in a timely manner outweighs the benefits, she said.

“Those wedded to the over-the-river location need to deal with the divorce because it’s already happened,” Ure said.

She said crime and incidents like public urination are already a problem at the current library, so they need not be another issue at the proposed location.

The meeting on Monday will go into more detail on how payments will be made and the construction of the facilities.