Some Renton City Council members wondered Monday night whether the public has been included enough in discussions on the fate of Renton’s two libraries.

Council members at their Committee of the Whole meeting heard from Bill Ptacek, King County Library System director, and Alex Pietsch, administrator of the city’s Department of Community and Economic Development, on the progress to replace Renton’s libraries downtown and in the Highlands following the city’s annexation to KCLS in 2010.

KCLS and the City of Renton have determined that seismic upgrades and remodeling of the current downtown library location would be too costly to undertake. The City Council now is considering whether to issue $18 million in bonds to pay for design, construction and other construction-related costs for the two libraries.

The council’s Finance Committee will review the library bond at 5:30 p.m. May 9 in the council’s conference room, before making a recommendation to the full council.

Pietsch explained that KCLS voters passed a $172 million construction bond in 2004, allowing significant upgrades and expansion throughout KCLS. Renton taxpayers are not paying off this debt because the city wasn’t part of the library system at the time, nor did they assume any obligation to pay the debt once the city annexed.

Current KCLS taxes paid by Renton property owners fund maintenance and operations, but not capital projects, such as building new libraries. So, the 2004 bond package did not and cannot include upgrades to Renton’s libraries.

Council member Randy Corman said the process has been a confusing one and it is evident to him the public has not been following along closely.

Corman said he knew the annexation vote into KCLS was controversial, with people thinking they would be taxed twice for the same service and others thinking that with the annexation the extra $2 million in library funds could be used to balance the budget.

He is concerned that the public didn’t understand that a sales agreement referred to the purchase of former Big 5 property downtown. Corman is also concerned that if the city doesn’t have a plan for the downtown Renton library, it could fall into disuse for a long period and the city could lose it.

Corman was reluctant to build a new downtown library until there is a clear plan to use the current library.

Council member Greg Taylor echoed Corman’s sentiments that he heard from many citizens about their discomfort with moving the library from over the Cedar River to the former Big 5 location on Third Avenue.

People, he said, ask him, “how did we get to this point so quickly.”

Taylor said he understands economic revitalization as a reason for the move. But he’s finding that many people don’t understand why the new downtown library would be smaller than the present one.

Taylor said he wanted to see a properly vetted process that satisfies constituents’ questions and he brought up the possibility of creating a task force.

Council member King Parker reiterated that the vote to annex into the KCLS system indicated that Renton would get two new libraries and that citizens would get more for their dollars today than they did under the old system.

He said the information the council has received has been extensive and he feels he is doing what citizens asked him to do.

Council member Rich Zwicker agreed with Parker and said that although he loves the current downtown library location, this is what council members have been elected to do and the public will be involved in the design process of the new location.

The city’s finance strategy is to issue 10-year bonds that will yield the $19.8 million for the libraries.

Pietsch said that this strategy will use money previously used to fund Renton’s own library system to pay the debt service on the bonds. So, there will not be an increase in taxes over what people are currently paying he added.

Many people who packed the council chambers Monday night did not agree with King’s or Parker’s statements.

The room was full during the Committe of the Whole meeting, even though the public could not comment. Many spoke up during the public comment time during the regular meeting that began at 7 p.m.

Many of the comments from the audience took issue with the way the vote on the KCLS annexation was introduced, taxpayer contributions to the new libraries, the so-called required upgrades, crime in the downtown core, and the smaller size of the intended new downtown library among other issues.

Renton resident Phyllis Forister brought a stack of signatures she had on a petition to get the City Council to reconsider issuing bonds to pay for the libraries.

“I’m sorry I think that the people of Renton do not want this to happen,” said Forister, who received applause for her speech as did several other speakers from the audience. Forister said she would take the matter up with the state attorney general if it came to that.

According to City Attorney Larry Warren, such a petition carries no legal weight to force the council to do anything, although politically it is a way for the public to get their voice heard by the council.

Forister wondered aloud how the city could consider another tax when citizens are losing their homes to foreclosure.

Pat Flattum is a Metro bus driver and cautioned the council against moving the downtown library close to the Transit Center. She sees plenty driving in and out of the center spending at least 40 minutes there everyday, she said.

“What do I see, it’s not good,” Flattum said citing panhandlers, drunks and violence in and around the center.

She said that squatters will take over the proposed downtown library’s bathrooms, making them unappealing to library patrons and real effort needs to be made to make downtown safer. She called the downtown parking garage the best place to break in to a vehicle because no one can see you.

Others, like Dustin Toms, cited “quality-of-life crimes” like public urination and fear of violence from the Transit Center.

There was one person that spoke in support of the new Renton libraries, but the majority of the crowd spoke in favor of keeping the downtown branch where it is. Still others made the point that the sole effort to revitalize the downtown core cannot be heaped on just the library.

Monday night’s meeting included just a briefing on the city’s library situation. The council has yet to take action toward issuing bonds to pay for it.