By TRACEY COMPTON and DEAN A. RADFORD

tcompton@rentonreporter.com

The Aug. 7 vote may not result in a final decision on siting the downtown library, as the city attorney has raised questions and City Council members look at next steps if the Cedar River site is chosen.

City Attorney Larry Warren has outlined several factors that could throw a wrench in the outcome.

Those factors include:

• if permitting approval over the Cedar River takes longer than expected or permits are denied

• not securing enough money to renovate the Cedar River site

• a lawsuit brought by the King County Library System

Even though council members were told Aug. 9 the vote was not advisory, Warren said the those circumstances could naturally undo the vote if the Cedar River library was chosen.

But, asked directly what he thinks City Council would do if the Cedar River location is chosen, Warren said, “I think the council will try and make it work if they can.”

While there are legal or practical reasons why the vote doesn’t bind the council, Warren said, politically it’s a different story.

“Politically it’s hard for the council to walk away from the vote,” he said.

The idea that the vote is not binding was not Stuart Avery’s understanding of the ballot measure and election. Avery is the spokesperson for proponents of the Cedar River site.

“If anyone says otherwise it’s because they are aware they may be losing and are having a hard time letting go of the smaller library idea at the Piazza,” said Avery via email. “There is no room for a lawsuit by either Renton or KCLS. The Renton council agreed unanimously to place the item before the voters, and KCLS affirmed to Renton officials that they accepted this before it went to the ballot.”

These were the conditions, Avery added, as long as the city continued the Piazza design phase and the city was able to make the primary Aug. 7 date.

Avery also cited the recent KCLS letter to Renton voters which mentions the two location choices as evidence there must be a clear decision.

“Anyone who sues anyone over the results will lose and look like a spoil-sport in doing so,” Avery wrote.

Litigation is not a part of the conversation yet as KCLS and the City of Renton have good communication and are partners presently on the issue, according to Bill Ptacek, KCLS director.

Ptacek would not comment on whether the system would press the issue of their contract by bringing a lawsuit.

“I can say that there is an agreement with the library and the city, but I think our purpose is to work with the city,” Ptacek said. “Litigation is what happens when people ultimately can’t agree on what to do.”

For Ptacek and the KCLS Board of Trustees, nothing has changed and they are still planning for both the Highlands library and the downtown Piazza site.

“We’re not talking to anybody about litigation at this point in time,” Ptacek said.

The library director did call the situation “perplexing.”

“It’s kind of unusual to have a city make a decision, then engage us to embark on a road toward development, then almost at the halfway point say, ‘wait, stop,'” said Ptacek.

So, what will happen if the Cedar River location is chosen?

City Council member Marcie Palmer is sure that it will happen.

“I am very confident we will be renovating the Cedar River Library, and I am very excited about our “new” Cedar River Library and about the improvements we are going to make to this iconic beautiful building,” Palmer said in an email.

Palmer predicted that the city would renovate the Cedar River library as outlined by the Robinson Co. and do something nice with the Big 5 site or sell it if the city needs the funds back.

“We’ll look for savings and/or funds from the sale of the existing Highlands library site to ensure we get the Highlands library built and the Cedar River library renovated,” Palmer wrote. “We have a million dollars in contingency funding built into our estimate, so if we plan right, this may not be very hard at all.”

As part of the $18 million bond issue, the City of Renton is building a new Highlands library as part of a major Sunset Boulevard redevelopment.

City Council member Rich Zwicker was asked to comment on this story and he declined, saying, “I cannot speak on behalf of the council on this topic and my personal opinion is immaterial until after the results of the election are certified.”

Zwicker, who has voted consistently for moving forward with the Piazza site, was one of the council members who worked to get a measure before council again and on the ballot.

Mayor Denis Law also weighed in on whether the vote is binding and who gets the final say on the downtown library’s location.

The City Council would have final say on the location of a downtown library, although the public’s vote is “very binding politically,” he said.

It’s “irresponsible to ignore that (the vote) after they weigh in,” he said of the council on the public vote. If the city “absolutely thought” the Cedar River library wasn’t possible, then it shouldn’t have been put on the table as an option, he said.

Law also points out that, “we do have a contract with KCLS to build at the Big 5 site and they certainly could take legal action to force the city to live up to the terms of the agreement,” said Law.

For sure, Law said, the city has committed to building two state-of-the-art libraries for KCLS. Law said he thinks KCLS will work with the city “in good faith” to make that happen.

On the table potentially would be design concessions from KCLS and the need to come up with more money.

“Whether they are willing to take a lesser facility, I don’t know,” Law said.

The council would decide how to pay for any costs not covered by the $18 million bond issues, Law said. There’s a strong chance, he said, the City Council would have to raise more money through additional bonds.

Law also cautioned the public shouldn’t consider the refurbishing a “minor remodel.”

“This is going to be a significant change to this building at a tremendous cost,” he said.

The KCLS Board of Trustees has a say in the location of the downtown library.

“The (library) board has the ultimate responsibility,” said Ptacek. “I think the city would even tell you that. The mitigating factor here is, this is the city’s money. The library board can’t tell the city how to spend its money. On the other hand the city can’t tell the library where to operate its libraries, in a sense.”

“But, you work together; hopefully we can get together to figure this out,” he said.