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After an exciting three-month campaign full of passion, door-belling, blogging, information booths, a parade enty, and letters to the editor– covering subjects such as library patrons desires and needs, conflicting cost estimates, conflicting parking predictions, and discussion of many other “unknowns,”– Renton citizens have overwhelmingly selected “Over the Cedar River” as their favorite location for a library. The first returns were showing the Cedar River locations leading the Piazza location by 76% to 24 %.
Cedar River Library Campaign Chair Stuart Avery summarized the sentiment tonight at an election-watch/victory party by restating the theme the campaign had adopted, “there really is no better place.”
As a special treat, former Renton Mayor Don Custer, a charming, witty, senior statesmen for our city who presided over Renton when the library was built in 1966, stopped by the party tonight. Don shared stories of the original library construction, and reminded us the project was accomplished for about $300,000 . He said the inspiration for the library came from Italy and England, where he and others had seen shops on bridges. He said one of the original architects also took their inspiration from a building on the US East Coast that was located on a bridge over the freeway, but none of these buildings were libraries.
Some of the supporters of the competing Piazza Library site had expressed a desire to move the library to stimulate revitalization of downtown. At tonight’s party, there was a prevailing sentiment that downtown revitalization was a worthy goal deserving of city emphasis, but that moving the library was not the right approach– several citizens were eager to share other ideas for bringing improvements to the areas near the Piazza.
The Renton Patch has other details on the election which can be found here.
Thank you to all who participated in this campaign, and thanks to the voters of Renton for supporting our unique, treasured library.
Cedar River Library supporters in the River Days parade ten days ago
I’ve always like parades. I’m walking (and waving) next to Marcie Palmer who serves with me on City Council– Stuart Avery, Cedar River Library campaign chair, is to the far right leading the procession (in white campaign T-shirt)
Hey Terri Briere… are we still a vocal minority now? Can you hear us?
You need to pipe down and stop gloating. All you’ve managed to do is hold on to a relic.
Celebrating a victory after a difficult campaign is not gloating, it is a normal and healthy activity. People need to celebrate things that are meaningful to them. If the Piazza site had been chosen by voters and its supporters celebrated their win, I would have accepted their need to celebrate. The existing library building might be a relic, but it’s a beloved relic and will be transformed into something better.
Dear Future Renton Politicians,
Take careful note on who was involved in the Piazza Campaign and make sure you don’t have them on your campaign if you have any desire to win.
They had vastly more money from developers and still they couldn’t manage to get any more votes than are accounted by idiots that fill the bubbles on the ScanTron randomly.
– Yours Respectfully, P. J. Willysworth Esq.
Thank you so much for:
1. Listening to your constituents (as always)
2. Providing honest documentation of the facts and costs involved
3. Standing up for our right to vote on the petition- the way a democracy SHOULD work!
Great job!
I have to admit it has been excruciating to sit by and watch the library drama unfold and not being able to vote along with the Renton citizens. I knew though, that if given the chance to let the people vote on it, it would be a landslide. If this were any other building in Renton I am sure no one would have really cared as much. There is something about this library that is just so special. A HUGE congratulations to all involved and to the council members for not caving in and letting this vote go to the people who will ultimately pay for it. I am certain it will not be forgotten by the future voting citizens of Renton.
Thanks Susan. You are very kind.
I have to admit that the size of the victory surprised me.
Now that this is over, I’d actually like to see Renton save a bit of money on the remodel of the Cedar River Library – $10mil is way too much to spend. We need some new paint, better windows, and a new bathroom and that’s about it.
We could use the savings to make something nice out of the Big-5 building, and maybe hire some code enforcement officers to clean up the slumlords of DTR.
The vote on the library location is in: Renton Wins!
Cedar River Library lovers get to keep the location we all have appreciated for nearly half a century. Awareness of the need for real revitalization in the oldest part of downtown Renton has not been this great since the local improvement district was created in the late 60’s.
There is still lots of work to do, but we have a chance to get things moving in a productive direction. Here is a To Do List to jumpstart the creative dialog between Economic Development Department, the City Council and the downtown business owners. Please add to my relatively random list of ideas.
Pass an ordinance requiring a private kitchen and bath for rented rooms in the historic district and providing tax credits for renovated office space.
Provide property tax credits to owners who strip off all of the ugly 1970’s upgrades to the building facades and/or restore the brick and stone exteriors and windows to their original design using energy efficient materials. For buildings constructed after 1920, encourage modifications that harmonize the visual appearance of the exteriors with the buildings constructed between 1900 and 1915.
Replace all of the old, ugly and increasingly unsafe sidewalks on S 3rd between Main and Smithers. Replace the odd gutters at the corners. Choose a concrete finish that is safe and durable, but reminiscent of the original wood sidewalks or Renton brickworks sidewalks or both. Include modest midblock sidewalk bump-outs for easier pedestrian street crossing and sidewalk vendor kiosks. Include utility hookups.
Replace the odd 1970’s street lighting and the remaining corner mounted traffic signals. Choose a pole and lamp style reminiscent of early 1900’s gas lamps. Consolidate the little hand holes, and improve the underground conduits to add capacity and provide a building entrance to every structure in downtown. This will allow connection of very high speed fiber to the second story offices. Combine superfast Internet with low cost office space on the southern end of the eastside tech corridor and you create a high-tech startup incubator.
Realign SR-900. The Historic District along S 3rd suffers from far too much vehicle traffic and too little foot traffic in part because they are in direct conflict with each other. By extending MLK way diagonally through the Safeway parking lot to connect with S 2nd and doing a modest widening of S 2nd there could be nearly the same traffic carrying capacity on S 2nd as there is now using both S 2nd and S 3rd.
Reduce S 3rd to a single west bound lane with diagonal parking along both sides. Provide traffic calming planters at each intersection with small street trees and low growing vegetation. Consider stained concrete intersections as we have in The Landing. The finish could reflect roadway bricks made at the Renton brickworks.
Bathe the historic district in very high speed, free wi-fi. Include Rainier, The Landing and the Ikea Shopping District. Perhaps Sunset between N 10th and N 12th and parts of N 4th should be included. Municipal wi-fi is not nearly as cool as it used to be, but is increasingly expected as part of any desirable destination. Very young tech startups might ride on free wi-fi for the first year.
DO NOT spend 10 million dollars to renovate the Cedar River Library. Do an essentials only renovation for about $2 million. If KCLS insists that there needs to be an entrance near the south parking lot, put an attractive rain roof over the pedestrian bridge leading from the parking lot to the existing entrance. When the economy improves a more extensive remodel and expansion to a Ragional library can be considered.
DO spend about 2 million renovating the existing Big 5 structure and relocate the Police Patrol Operations Division into the building for at least 5 years. There has been talk of building a new City Hall building in the old downtown for several years. That is not going to be affordable for a decade (never if we get Barack’d again on Nov. 6th). We can do some stimulus and a lot of crime prevention by putting the police who chase criminal’s right into the belly of the beast. Once West Hill annexes, that location will be a more central location for most of the high crime areas in Renton.
Vacate Mill Ave. S between Bronson Way and S 3rd and expand the parking for the Library and the Museum. With the expanded traffic volume on S 2nd/Bronson the Mill and Bronson intersection will no longer be viable anyway. Put a large bus stop bump out on Bronson where Mill used to be. Include a large sign identifying the KCLS library.
Get KCLS to pay for including the Cedar River and Highlands Libraries in the Renton Wayfinding sign system. They promised us some signs, we should hold them to their promises or they will continue to have no reason to respect Renton.
Yes the projects described above will cost something like 200 million dollars and it will be difficult to amass that much cash. It does not need to be done all at once. Something like 15% to 20% must be local matching funds, but once you have the 30 to 40 million budgeted, it is possible to get federal, state and county improvement grants that could provide practically all of the remaining money needed to actually revitalize Renton. The 10 million we dumped into the parking garage might have attracted 50 million outside dollars. We could have SR-900 realigned already if we had leaders with a little less impatience and just a little more vision and faith in our community.
Get the Administrator of the Community and Economic Development Department to move into town. Strongly encourage the other department heads to live here as well. Their perspective needs to be that of a participant, not a detached management consultant.
If you don’t like my crazy ideas, please post some of your own. It is time to come together to move Renton ahead.
I like all of them – a series of rational improvements, and no expensive boondoggles.
OK Ben,
How about this? Annex West Hill and extend Renton level police service west to Seattle. Cleaning up crime in downtown Renton needs a regional approach and the King County Sheriffs don’t get the funding they need to hold up their end of the deal. If we are going to beat the crime in Renton and West Hill, we need to join West Hill to Renton first.
Still rational?
Thanks Union Hat for your excellent comments! I’ve used your comment above, and your follow-on exchange with Ben, to start an all-new entry specifically on this topic. It’s worthy of it’s own entry, and a fun, important topic.
Readers: Please find that thread (my next blog entry) and add your ideas to Union Hats!
Oh Union Hat, such a visionary… Your ideas are very well thought out and I for one think they really could be the turning point for a “true downtown revitalization.” I really love the ideas to preserve the original architectural
look of Renton. This is so important to honor the deep history that Renton beholds. I have always thought too that the Police Storefront (per se) would best be in the center of the “hot point”. Getting a hold of the crime issue is first and foremost to getting people to want to shop those areas.
Get a grip on crime and start punishing those who don’t obey the law and I am am sure amazing things can happen for Renton as well as every community.
I look forward to reading your further thoughts.
Adding my thanks for your clear documentation of a very important battle. I have always had a severe allergy to people who throw despair over those already in some struggle and just tell them it is hopeless when it might not be. Your work has been a good anti-allergen and if I had to teach students about civics and how “little” people can make a difference, I would provide them with the story of this town and its library, wherever they live.
One wonders how many similar epics go unsung…
i just hope it will eventually be put in a safer location then Liberty Park
Hi. I tripped over this site from the freedom foundation. Excellent work garnering the will of the people to make the city into what it should be. Now lets keep this going by only doing things in government that an acceptable form of majority rules supports. Wouldn’t those foolish government elites down at the Renton Central Planning be marginalized if we could run all government decisions this way?
I always liked parades as well, Randy. This was the most meaningful for our Renton Community in recent history. Thanks for you thoughtfully well-researched support as usual!
There’s certainly a lot to know about this issue.
I love all of the points you’ve made.