My take on this is that the City got into trouble with KCLS well before the ballot.

I believe they committed to pay KCLS attorney fees in the event things went south, and to the surprise of city leaders who felt they had the city in their pocket, the voters rejected their plan. So we are struggling with a bad situation, but we shouldn’t lose sight that the City leadership, particularly the staff, messed things up from the get-go.

When KCLS wrote the city threatening to sue, they billed the City for the attorney time (and the city paid). So the City Council had no choice but to capitulate on the KCLS design. And the only way to prevent this from being a recurring mess, is to get smarter staff.

That has to begin with better representation on City Council (i.e., fewer incumbents) and then work on the Mayor, who has been a bane to the voter’s wishes on this and a variety of other issues such as citizen participation in civic advisory boards and the historical society.

Having had better representation and a more responsive staff, I believe we could have achieved the outcome we really wanted, which was the existing city library with the needed structural repairs, for a budget of $6 million to $8 million.

The fact is they have so much money they can tear down the existing building and put up a new one on the existing site, and the KCLS Director seems to be cutting the pedestrian access bridge away from the building just to stick his thumb in the eye of the 10,000 people who voted against change.

Let’s not rewrite history, lets get in front of it.

Karel Lambert,
Renton Businessman