The Renton City Council Monday night requested a formal resolution be brought before them calling for the city to de-annex from the King County Library System.

The council requested the measure as a means to be able to discuss the city’s options regarding the library.

Council president Randy Corman suggested the motion, saying the city needs to use all of the “levers” it can when dealing with KCLS regarding the rebuild of the Cedar River Library.

Speaking in front of a council chambers packed with members of the group Save the Cedar River Library…Again! and after an extended public comment period focused entirely on the first plans sent for review by KCLS, Corman said state law allows either side to begin the de-annexation after three years and called it “irresponsible” for the city not to pursue all of its options – including de-annexation – in order to ensure the city gets the library citizens want.

“Their time frame is up,” he said, citing complaints in dealing with KCLS regarding the Renton library. “They had three years.”

Voters of Renton approved annexation in February 2010 by a very small margin.

Corman compared the service from the library to other service providers who are not living up to customer expectations.

“It’s like my phone company,” he said. “If I wasn’t getting good reception, I’d drop them.”

Councilman Don Persson said he would like to know the ramifications to the city if they do attempt to de-annex, even if it was just to be used as a “hammer” in negotiations.

“Whenever I think I have the hammer on somebody and I put it down, it sometimes costs me more money than if I worked through the problem,” he said.

Councilman Rich Zwicker said while he is “optimistic” the negotiations would continue and end up in Renton’s favor, he warned against using de-annexation as a threat and said it is his belief that without KCLS, the city might end up with no library at this point.

He then said he thought this was something the whole council should discuss and moved for a formal resolution regarding de-annexation that could then be discussed at a future committee of the whole meeting, which was promptly seconded and approved.

After the meeting David Keyes, speaking for the Save the Cedar River LIbrary … Again! said he was encouraged to hearthe discussion by the council and though he disagreed with Zwicker that losing KCLS would mean no library, he said it was important to discuss the alternatives.

“We don’t trust KCLS at all,” he said.

No date was given for the committee of the whole discussion.

Also at the meeting, members of the Cedar River group urged the council and the city to formally reject the plans put forth by KCLS prior to what they said was a deadline of Thursday or it would be considered approved.

The council and administration said they had already formally rejected the plans and had told KCLS that they would not approve anything until at least after Tuesday’s open house at the Library, when the public had a chance to comment on the plans.